Modern Chinese Civilization

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

by

Dr. A. F. LEGENDRE

Late Director of the Imperial School of
Medicine at Chengtufu
and

Commissioner for Scientific
Research

Translated from the French by
ELSIE MARTIN JONES

JONATHAN CAPE
THIRTY BEDFORD SQUARE
LONDON

FIRST PUBLISHED MCMXXIX

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
BUTLER W TANNER LTD
FROME

CONTENTS

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION Page ix

INTRODUCTION XV

I SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS 7

II THE CHINESE FAMILY 1 6

III THE CHINESE HOUSE 3 1

IV THE CHINESE CITY 39

V THE CHINESE STREET 6 1

VI CHINESE DRESS 75

VII CHINESE FOOD 86

VIII ARTS AND INDUSTRIES 96

IX AGRICULTURE 1 1 3

X CLASSES OF SOCIETY 1 25

XI ECONOMIC POSITION OF THE VARIOUS CLASSES

OF SOCIETY 149

XII THE CHINESE CHARACTER 1 59

XIII A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF CHINa’s ETHNICAL

CHARACTERISTICS AND HER HISTORIC
EVOLUTION 205

XIV YOUNG CHINA 24 1

XV THE FUTURE OF CHINA 27O

INDEX 289

vii

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

I HAVE been asked to write a new preface for the
English translation of my book on Modern Chinese
Civilization, and I comply with pleasure, though I can
see nothing in recent events which lead me to modify
my reading of the situation two years ago. Certain per-
sonages have disappeared from the political scene. Sun
Yat Sen for example, but the principal war lords remain
in the forefront, and the conceptions of their little clans
have in no way changed, nor, considering their psychic
or social age, can any change be expected from them —
that is to say, their sole care is to assure to themselves
the material benefits of power. General interests, the
public good, are completely ignored in the present
evolutionary stage of the Chinese, even of those edu-
cated abroad. These last have committed the serious
mistake of thinking that adopting a political or social
idea is the same thing as adapting themselves to it. But
the adoption of such ideas by an old and backward
people naturally does not create any new fitness on their
part, and certainly does not imply ‘adaptation.’ On the
contrary, adaptation may be a lengthy process, since it
comes into collision with the whole past, an earlier life
counted in hundreds, or even thousands, of years. The
brain, real ruler of our destiny, cannot be transformed
at a word of command; it develops only slowly: this is a
biological law; nothing can prevail against it. This is
the reason why the establishment of the Republic in
China was an anachronism^ the work of giddy heads,
both foreign and Chinese. No other result was to be

ix

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

expected than a retrogression, a return to feudalism,
to the rule of war lords and little political gangs. It is
impossible for democratic rule to follow abruptly on the
■patriarchal age. And the present social situation (which
belongs rather to the year looo than to the twentieth
century) cannot be changed through the instrument-
ality of political puppets who have no programme, or,
if by the aid of foreigners they have succeeded in
formulating one, are incapable of carrying it out.
Though Young China has barely emerged ’from in-
fancy, its emancipators, Europeans, and especially
Americans, have insisted that it should grow and
mature immediately, and, moreover, free itself from all
ancestral discipline. The result is plain: the Young
Chinaman has up to now been nothing but a promoter
of disorder and anarchy, with all the ruin resulting from
them. Poverty is so great and so widespread through-
out China that the mass of the people, 99^ per cent, of
this mass, see in the intervention of foreign Powers their
only salvation.

The Great Powers shrink from intervention; but
they make a fatal mistake, for there is no other solution
of the Chinese problem. Moreover, from time im-
memorial, China has never been extricated from a crisis
except by the instrumentality of the foreigner. The
Chinaman has never succeeded in governing himself.
His last master was the Manchu; in old days he was
dominated by the Turco-Iranian, both before and after
the Christian era. China is nothing but a conglomera-
tion of human groups, differing widely from each other,
and naturally repelled by an instinctive antipathy, who

X

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

have always fought one another. There has never been
real unity in China, either racial or political.

The Young Chinese who talk of uniting their coun-
try prove that they are ignorant of its people and its
history. They have become foreigners in the eyes of the
real Chinese of all classes, who nevertheless dare not
resist. Thus anarchy continues. As for Chinese nation-
alism, so much vaunted by certain propagandists, it is
only an illusion; it exists only in the minds of the
European and the American. This nationalism is no-
thing but an eruption of greed, a shameless exploitation
of the propertied classes.

The entrance into Pekin of Chiang-Kai-Shek and
Feng-Ya-Hsiang, the very Christian general, sub-
sidized by Moscow, will alter nothing, any more than
the bustle and stir of the phantom Government of Nan-
kin, which in no way represents China, and has behind
it no settled party with a real programme and real
power, such as we have at home. Moreover, there are I
know not how many governments: that of Canton, that
of Hankow, of Szechwan, of Yunnan, of Mukden, etc.
In short, nothing has changed since the death of Sun
Yat Sen and the arrival of the Southerners in Pekin,
except the attitude of the Powers, of America in par-
ticular, which has committed the imprudence of recog-
nizing as solid a Government without mandate and
without authority, attacked already by the other clans,
who will shortly overthrow it, to be themselves over
thrown in their turn, in rapid succession. Thus the
present tragi-comedy will go on, from which the whole
Chinese people is suffering.

xi

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

There has been a complete misapprehension in
Europe as to the significance of the victory ascribed to
the Southerners with Chiang-Kai-Shek at their head.
In reality it was two Northern generals, Yen Han Shen
and Feng-Tu-Hsiang, who drove back Chang-Tso-Lin
and conquered Pekin. The real victor is no other than
Feng, satellite of the Bolshevists, who have supplied
him with staff officers, money and munitions, while they
direct his political manoeuvres. In short, it is Moscow
which has organized the whole business and brought it
to a successful issue. There have been no battles, no
real military action; propaganda and the Chinese dollar
have done it ail.

And if we get below the surface, we quickly recog-
nize that the contests between the war lords are nothing
but pretence: the real struggle, as heretofore, is between
Russians and Japanese for the domination of Man-
churia and Northern China. The war lord of the north
or the south is nothing but a puppet, and the strings
are being pulled by some great Power or other for its
own ends. And on this rivalry, this latent strife
between the great nations. Young China battens; it
exploits to the full the jealousy between the Powers,
wresting from us concessions which will be disastrous
to us and to China in a future which is only too near.

If civil war and anarchy persist, it is because of the
mutual jealousies of the Powers. Nothing has been
more fatal to the cause of order and humanity than the
policy of the last three years, which has consisted in
taking up an attitude of detachment with regard to the
attacks of the Chinese on England, for instance, for-

PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION

getting that mutual agreement in the present and in the
future can alone safeguard the interests of England
and America.

Therefore let us unite 1 Let us not wait until the mis-
chief is irreparable. By our union we shall save China
from herself, and consolidate this great world market.
Has not industrial Europe suffered enough from the
Russian crisis.? Let, then, the Powers unite for one of
the greatest efforts towards salvation and peace which
Humanity has ever undertaken.

Read again, moreover, the history of China; this
great country has never been extricated from its diffi-
culties without the intervention of the Foreigner.

The truth is that if China is left to herself, there are
hundreds of millions of helpless human beings who are
doomed to struggle for half a century, as many a time
in the past, amid all the anguish of insecurity and ever-
increasing ruin.

The peace of the world and the future of civilization
are at stake.

TOKYO, JAPAN,

August 28, 1928.

xiii

INTRODUCTION

I N this volume I propose to give a general view of
Chinese civilization as observed by me during the
many years which I have passed in the country, when I
was in daily contact with all classes of the population,
from the mandarin to the humble coolie, with the
artisan, the peasant, and the shopkeeper.

I have traversed the great roads of the plains,
climbed the mountain paths, and lived in great cities.
And to guard myself against the hasty and therefore
mistaken generalizations of so many travellers, I have
made a study of anthropology and sociology, as well as
of the natural sciences, thus enabling myself to under-
stand the possibilities of economic development.

I am thus in a position to describe Chinese civiliza-
tion as it was in the past, and as it remains to this day,
in spite of differences more apparent than real. For
anyone who knows the Chinese character to its depths,
and Chinese sociology with its secular characteristics,
must acknowledge that since the revolution of 1 9 1 1
there has not been a trace of real progress, either in the
social or the political order. Rather the contrary 1 The
facts will make this clear.

From the political standpoint, the unity effected in
the sixteenth century by the Manchu conquerors is to-
day destroyed. To-day is the reign of military dictators,
real feudal barons, who, with their armies of mercen-
aries, array the provinces one against another, and lay
hold of all the powers and resources of the country - so
thoroughly that the new regime called ‘republican’ has

XV

INTRODUCTION

been converted into a veritable anarchy under the
hardest of despotisms.

As for the central government, it is but a shadow,
recognized only by the great foreign Powers, who know
not to which puppet to address themselves.

Young China, together with certain politicians of
Europe and America, seduced by social chimeras, and
imagining in their ignorance that all races are alike, —
Young China placed all its hopes on Sun Yat Sen, the
Asiatic Washington, as Americans were pleased to call
him. To-day everyone knows the lamentable failure of
a man who, as Yuan Che Kai said, wanted to ‘chip the
feet of his people in order to fit them into democratic
shoes.’

What a costly failure for the Chinese people, what a
source of misery and ruin, even without counting the
immense loss of human life!

It is not progress when there is disorder everywhere
- except in a few provinces, such as Shansi — when the
mercenaries of the ‘Tu Chuns,’ brigands whose number
has become legion, treat vast regions as conquered
territory, pillaging and even massacring the unhappy
peasants who resist them.

It is not progress when the institution of the family is
violently assailed, — the family, that solid unit whose
tenacious organization has constituted the strength of
China, and has enabled her to endure throughout the
ages, in spite of many political and social upheavals.
No doubt the Chinese family system is excessively
archaic, in ways which I shall explain; the authority of
the father is too absolute. But it must not be forgotten

INTRODUCTION

that to the Chinaman, in whom the religious sentiment
is very slightly developed, the cult of the family con-
stitutes the great and indeed the only moral discipline.
If then this ancient organization is to be brutally
handled, if it is to be transformed in a day, the un-
known has to be faced, and the whole social edifice has
to be reconstructed. And on what foundations?

It is not progress when Young China is in a ferment,
perorating unweariedly, taking up an insulting attitude
towards the European, - the European who has given
to China quick and easy means of communication, and
who has created the present economic awakening.
These young people are renouncing all discipline,
family, social or legal. They are aspiring to instruct
their parents, masters and governors. They are making
a clean slate of the past, even of Confucius and his pre-
cepts. They are showing an eagerness for destruction
which in no way astonishes those Europeans who know
the Asiatic mind, - a mind whose equilibrium is in-
variably upset when brought in contact with our social
ideas, so alien to their own; an inevitable sequel which
professional emancipators, even the best intentioned,
such as the adherents of the Y.M.C.A., always refuse to
recognize.

Is it a sign of progress that the young Chinaman is
speaking to-day the language of Soviet Russia in its
most correct brutality? Their nihilism, their negation
of all family or social duty not included in the Bolshevist
catechism, their contempt of the best ancestral tradi-
tion, or again their quite recent affectation of an extreme
materialism, show plainly the imprint of Moscow.

xvii B

INTRODUCTION

Doubtless there is a certain amount of pose in this
new attitude taken up by the young Chinese, -so
credulous, so imitative. Whether that be so or not, one
cannot fail to recognize this undeniable fact that the
definitely anarchic tendencies of these young people
would not have sprung so quickly from the propaganda
of Moscow, if an education, ill-adapted to the biological
age of the Chinaman, and labelled ‘democratic,’ had
not already invaded the old family structure, and, in
consequence, the social structure of the country. 'How
many worthy people of Europe and America, with a
mania for doing good, but ignorant of the Asiatic
world, have produced nothing but evil I But why have
they refused to give any heed to the deep racial differ-
ences and social differences, long insoluble.? Why al-
ways be guided by the principles of equality and uni-
formity, where biological laws prescribe diversity.?

The consequence is that Young China no longer
thinks or acts except to carry out, if not all the dogmas
of Moscow, at any rate all its political and social pre-
cepts. Bolshevist domination is real, and will become
intensified in the next few years if America and some
of the European powers do not arrive at a better under-
standing of their interest, if not their duty, and do not
realize before it is too late towards what complications
and political dangers they are being swept. There is
endless talk of world-peace, but to how small an extent
have we taken the path towards its realization!

For instance, people refuse to see in the present bol-
shevising agitation of the Chinese student anything but
a manifestation of new-born patriotism. Nevertheless,

xviii

INTRODUCTION

if we go back to the history of China and of her rela-
tions with Europe, we shall see that the present move-
ment is only a repetition of the old outbreaks of hatred
of the foreigner in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-
turies. Apparently it is useless to recall how the
European was treated, how he was penned up at Can-
ton and elsewhere, and what contempt was implied in
the current appellation, 'yang koui' (foreign devil),
showered upon him. And to-day as at the more recent
date of 1900, hatred of the foreigner still remains the
peculiar expression of Chinese nationality and of that
racial pride which has never ceased to consider
foreigners as 'Man Tze' (Barbarians), to be thrust out
by every possible means.

Under these conditions, can the new title ‘Republic’
alter the mental attitude which has endured for so
many centuries? You cannot change your nature with
your shirt. And wearing a bowler and a European suit
cannot produce an organic change in a yellow or black
man. Evolution, especially in ancient peoples, oper-
ates very slowly, very gradually. Common sense tells
us that.

Some people will tell you, ‘Look how China is trans-
formed; she has given herself a Parliament.’ Doubtless
she has; but this strange assembly, unlike any other,
and the laughing-stock of foreigners and Chinese alike,
never represented anything but the ambitions and
interests of the military dictators, who themselves chose
the deputies and rewarded them with their daily supply
of rice, and the small luxuries of which the Chinaman is
so greedy.

XIX

INTRODUCTION

These, then, are the facts.

The new judicial code is nothing but a gesture to
impress the European jurist. Chinese justice remains
particularly summary and cruel.

The Bolshevist hold in China has been denied. But
nothing is more true, nothing struck me so forcibly
during my journeys into the interior during these late
years. I had been under the impression that the Mosco-
vite propaganda was localized in the great towns of the
coast. I was forced to realize my mistake.

On the other hand, at the time of the strikes at
Shanghai, Tientsin and Canton, onlookers were soon
convinced that the real organizers and leaders were
not students but quite certainly Bolshevists under the
direction of Karakhan, Soviet Minister at Pekin. The
students were only the instruments, the puppets, as
old English residents at Shanghai soon discovered, —
marionettes, whose strings were pulled by Moscow.

Moreover, these strikes would never have extended
so far, nor would they have assumed such a serious char-
acter, if there had not been the technical skill and the
driving force of a European organizer at their back.
Purely Chinese movements are only fires of straw,
quickly extinguished. But the Bolshevist has not only
fomented these strikes against ‘imperialist’ Europeans,
with the Chinese student as tool, he has succeeded in
stretching his grasp so far as to dominate the southern
provinces.

At the present time, a certain Borodino is the real
dictator at Canton, since the death of Sun Yat Sen.
Were it not for his omnipotence, the English of Hong-

XX

INTRODUCTIO N

Kong, whose commerce has been so deeply affected,
would long ago have brought the Chinese authorities to
reason, instigated also by Chinese merchants, them-
selves still harder hit than the English.

This is not all ; in the north, the famous Christian
general, Feng-Tu-Hsiang, the notorious quick-change
artist, is Moscow’s man. At this moment he is fight-
ing with the money and the arms of the Soviet to make
Russia, not himself, master. For his short-sighted
trickery will have for him no other result than to make
him a mere stalking-horse, a puppet in the claws of the
Soviet bear.

It is, moreover, not the first time that China has tried
this game with Europeans, attempting to pit one nation
against another; it is the perennial policy of all feeble
peoples, and requires no expenditure of imagination.
The Chinaman is not clever at it. He has always lost in
this game of dupes, and to-day more than ever he is the
goose of the fable. The chief losers in the present
economic fight against the Powers called ‘Imperialist’ are
his own compatriots, - industrial, commercial, agricul-
tural. The Chinaman is the simple tool of the Soviet
policy, incapable of apprehending that in this game he
is devouring himself, destroying his own substance.

I learn, however, that a journalist has just affirmed in
a certain review that Bolshevism in China is a pure fig-
ment of the imagination, and that the Soviets, when all
is said, are the docile instruments rf the Chinese
students -the Soviets, whose redoubtable audacity,
determination and aggressive imperialism are only too
well known.

INTRODUCTION

Last year these docile instruments quite openly laid
their hands on Mongolia, and rule to-day at Urga be-
hind the mask of some Mongolian puppet; they are
manoeuvring to dominate afresh rich Manchuria, whose
great railroad they have again seized.

Yet we are told that Bolshevist influence in China is
a myth! The man who can write thus reminds me of
some of my pupils at the Imperial School of Medicine
which I established in Szechwan (Western China) in
1903. As they were entirely ignorant of all the natural
and physical sciences, it was agreed with the authori-
ties that the course of study should last five years, two
of which were for preliminary instruction. All the
pupils appeared to acquiesce in this programme. But
at the end of six months a certain number suddenly dis-
appeared. I learned that these students had themselves
opened schools in large towns of Szechwan, where,
with the characteristic impudence of the Chinaman,
they were giving ‘a thorough education,’ they said, ‘in
all the western sciences, including medicine.’ And they
had pupils too, since the parents, knowing nothing of
our sciences, had no means of testing their claim.

So it is with our journalist. After two or three
months passed in a Pekin hotel, that is to say on the
threshold of an immense country which he has never
entered, he emits oracular utterances upon an organiza-
tion so complex as this Chinese organization, whether
it be considered from the ethnical or the social and
political standpoint.

Are you astonished then that the unfortunate French
people are so badly informed.^ Or that our Press is so

xxii

INTRODUCTION

backward in all that concerns the handling of foreign
problems? For this journalist is far from being the
only one of his kind, - quite the contrary. To sum up,
to-day in China there is chaos -an evolution back-
wards; no party, no class puts forward any programme
whatsoever of reconstruction or of real efficient trans-
formation.

They want to get rid of all ‘Imperialists’ - of Eng-
lish, French, Americans and Japanese. What will be
the result? Undoubtedly a new yoke, heavier and more
brutal than any other, - that of Moscow, — upheld by
a Germany which is resuming its advance towards the
East, and judges the present time especially propitious.
And who will affirm that Japan, threatened by Young
China, will not enter this promising combination? It
would then be all over with Chinese independence.
That is why I frame the wish that the ancient wisdom of
China should resume its rights, that wisdom which I
knew and appreciated in my early days in that great
country.

DR. A. LEGENDRE

July 1926.

xxui

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

CHAPTER I

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

F or some twenty years, and especially since the
revolution of 19 ii which saw the close of the
Manchu dynasty and the establishment of the republic,
we have been hearing of great changes in China.
The Anglo-Saxon world, more particularly America,
which had regarded the movement with much favour,
rejoiced greatly, and revealed an instant faith, touching
if not very reasonable, in the new rigime. As if a
political system could make men, and, in an ancient
country where for long centuries absolutism had been
the practice both in government and in family life,
could create citizens! As if the ideas and the impres-
sions dating from thousands of years could dissolve in
a day, and make room for a new civilization funda-
mentally foreign - the civilization of very advanced
peoples, infinitely more so than the Chinese masses !

Is it possible that in China the patriarchal period
can be abruptly succeeded by a democratic system?
Is it conceivable except as a play of words, the phrase-
ology of politicians who are passing through strange
birth-pangs? In biology, the phenomenon of ‘muta-
tion’ is known to us, and is a reality, but neither in
psychology nor in social science has anything of the
kind yet been seen.

Hence in the following pages we shall have cause to
realize that in order to transform a people, and to effect
an organic change in a race, it is not enough to fly the
Republican flag in a country, as certain simple-minded

7

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

democrats of Europe and Asia have been led to believe.
We shall see in the course of this study all the conse-
quences of such a delusion. The facts will be only too
plain.

China, of course, bestowed on herself a Parliament.
The nature of its proceedings and their mischievous
sterility will enlighten us fully on the dangers of such
a creation when it is premature and does not harmonize
with the stage of development reached by a people.

Moreover, we can sum up in a word the actual state
of the new republic born in 1911. It is an anarchy,
increasing from year to year. It is a veritable falling
back, socially and politically. In almost every province
there exists a military dictatorship of the most tyran-
nous kind. Since the suppression of the Son of Heaven,
symbol of all discipline and all morality, we see a great
country adrift, an enormous human mass out of action,
in search of a new equilibrium.

Does this mean that no change is necessary in China.^
No, there is no doubt that changes must be made, but
they should be slow and gradual; they ought for the
most part to follow rather than precede social progress,
or the advance of the masses in political knowledge.
I may also add that even the economic structure, which
is seriously faulty in China, cannot be improved except
by a radical change in the mentality of the agricultural
classes, both rich and poor - a change all the more
important since these classes make up at least 90 per
cent, of the whole population.

Now in this world of agriculture it is the traditional
belief that ‘the shadow of one tree deprives one family

8

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

of a livelihood.’ Hence for centuries there has been a
systematic massacre of trees throughout this immense
territory, both in the plains and in the hills, so that
to-day forests have completely disappeared, and
brushwood and bushes are rare.

What are the consequences of such an error of
judgment.? They are terrible - an alternation of drought
and flood, with famine established as a perpetual guest
in the homes of the Chinese people. In fact, neither
noble nor peasant has ever understood the value of the
forest; on the contrary, both have always treated it as
an enemy.

Induced by Europeans, a few energetic mandarins
have attempted reafforestation during recent years, but
in the night the peasant goes out to cut down the young
trees.

There is, then, nothing to be done so long as there
persists this failure to understand the use of the tree.

What can be hoped for in the social and political
sphere so long as in the vital question of agricultural
production error is so deeply rooted - a most fatal
error, since it not only costs at regular intervals millions
of human lives, but, by reducing the pittance of the
surviving mass, diminishes its vitality also.

This immense territory of great natural wealth is
to-day partially ruined; and in no other country is
poverty so general. Nevertheless, it is a territory of
vast resources, only needing to be better handled,
more especially as it is capable of the most varied pro-
duction, from the mere fact that it extends geographic-
ally from the 20th to the 53rd degree of latitude, and

9

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

from the 74th to the 134th degree of longitude, com-
prising a total area exceeding 4 million square miles.
This enormous surface, with the exception of the desert
of Turkestan, is everywhere fertile, and can be used for
stock-raising where it is not suitable for cultivation.
Mongolia, for example, is in no respect a desert region,
but can maintain immense herds. Certain parts even
supply excellent wheat areas, as recently shown.

Now this enormous territory of varied climates which
produces all the cereals and all the nutritious or indus-
trial plants grown in temperate and semi-tropical
countries - which produces textiles such as silk and
cotton, and yields two harvests a year upon at least
half of the arable surface -this favoured territory, I
repeat, fails to nourish its population and supply regu-
larly a normal quantity of food adequate to its needs.

You will perhaps say, ‘Over-population.’ Not so.
Europe, smaller in extent by 800,000 square miles,
maintains a population of at least 100 millions more
than China. Moreover, it must be understood that
China does not possess the 400 millions of inhabitants
which we have unchangingly ascribed to her for a
century. For a population does not remain stationary
for a hundred years; it either grows or diminishes.

The statistics which I have been able to assemble
prove that the total is greatly exaggerated - by at least a
fourth. The demographic and economic facts which I
shall cite later to support this assertion will not fail to
convince even those geographers who in the absence
of exact information continue to set down in their books
this total of 400 million Chinese.

10

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

In spite of what I have said of agriculture and the
destruction of the forests, some will perhaps find it
difficult to understand why there is such terrible
poverty in China. As a matter of fact, it does not arise
from one kind of prejudice or tradition only. Other
causes have operated. Certain philosophic and religious
ideas of great antiquity have naturally influenced the
family, the individual, and consequently social and
economic life. They have even determined its orienta-
tion, in a country where change has always been
accursed and denounced as a violation of the most
sacred traditions.

The Chinaman, gradually worked upon by these
ideas, has found them more easy to adopt because they
harmonize fully with his biological characteristics -
dread of effort and fatalism - the latter a tendency of
weak races, who are disquieted by the struggle for
life.

Of all the ideas which have fashioned Chinese char-
acter, none has had more influence on its development
than that of ancestor-worship. It has penetrated into
the very fibre of the family, and has dominated it com-
pletely. The first duty of a son has always been to look
back towards his ancestor’s tomb. Any negligence in
the performance of rites, and above all any forgetfulness
of the foods, drinks and money which should be ten-
dered to the souls of the dead at fixed periods to meet
their wants in another world, involve tlie gravest mis-
fortunes for the family.

For him who wishes to lead a quiet life, to succeed
in business, or to have a good harvest, there is only one

II

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

method - to satisfy the requirements of the ancestor.
Apart from this course only misfortune awaits him.

Is it astonishing, then, that throughout their history
the life of the Chinese has been little more than one
long meditation upon death?

Is it surprising that the coffin should be the specially
precious gift which every good son must offer to his
father as soon as he has the means?

We must not, moreover, forget that Confucius l;jound
the Chinaman to the earth, and taught him not to look
beyond.

Dominated by such ideas, has it been possible for
the Chinaman to see further than his present necessi-
ties, the needs of his ancestor and his own? Could any
effort directed towards the future be justified in his
eyes? With difficulty; in fact, for thousands of years he
has lived in the past, and what a past ! Read his history,
and you will find it hard to believe that he could have
endured such sufferings through so many centuries.
The famous empire called ‘Celestial’ has been con-
stantly broken up, -torn into fragments by attacks
from outside and interior crises. Never has a country
undergone so many revolutions, civil wars and whole-
sale massacres. Apart from certain brilliant periods,
which have been as rare as they were short, the whole
history is lamentable and painful. If this worm-eaten
empire has survived up to last century, it may be
affirmed that its continuance has been due to its great
distance from Europe, and to the mutual jealousies of
the Powers.

It is important to notice that throughout these long

12

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

centuries of history the Chinese masses have scarcely
ever resisted, except when famine, an ever-recurring
evil, has at length got the better of their passivity, and
roused them in exasperation against their bad shep-
herds. If this inertia amazes us, then we must look for
the deep-seated original cause, not in philosophical or
other considerations, but in the racial type itself and its
biological significance.

Educational upbringing is only a secondary force,
whose action will be of a moderating or intensifying
character according to its tendency.

This is a fact of the highest importance in the
development of peoples, a fact which is generally
ignored, or which is eagerly contradicted in order that
we may be more at our ease in worshipping the myth of
equality - a myth which does not stand even the most
superficial examination of anthropological data.

Consider the Greeks and the Romans; they also
made much of ancestor-worship and the cult of the
tomb; they made it the base of their whole social sys-
tem. And yet what vitality we find among these
peoples ! What a faculty of practical realization ! What
heights did they not attain, in every manifestation of
creative intelligence and of fruitful will-power!

We see thus that it is the racial coefficient which
plays the primary part in the development of peoples.
The medium must certainly be taken into account,
that is to say, the soil, but the important thing is the
seed and its germinating quality.

‘Pietas et gravitas.’ These two precepts were the
symbols of Roman civilization, and never were pre-

13 c

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

cepts more strictly put into practice. Virtue among
them was never an empty word. When it was taught to
the plebeian, the intention was not merely to inculcate
discipline but to imbue the people with a motive
thought, with an ideal made up of dignity and self-re-
spect, so that the public interest might be better served.

Rarely has it been thus in China. The nobles, the
literati, have indeed preached all the virtues, but have
practised them much less. Too often have thfy fur-
nished a sorry example to the masses, whose morality
has accordingly diminished, with the result that mutual
distrust is the rule in China.

Listen to what has been said on the subject by Dr.
Smith, a very serious writer, who cannot be suspected
of partisanship, and who moreover has not been the
first to give a similar account of the high mandarin.

‘The life of a Chinese governor,’ he says, ‘abounds
in lofty sentiments and vile actions. He orders 10,000
heads to be cut off, and in giving this order he quotes a
passage from Mencius upon the sacredness of human
life. He puts in his own pocket the money designed to
repair the dykes, and deplores the loss caused by the
flooding of arable land.’

I, who have lived for many years in intimate contact
with Chinese society, find it impossible to contradict
such an assertion. It is among the humble in China
that one finds most conscience and character.

But I content myself with these general observations,
for the chapters which follow will enlighten you fully
as to the characteristics of the Chinaman in every
sphere, particularly the social and economic.

14

SOME GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS

What I describe is the real China — such as she has
been for thousands of years and still is to-day, away
from the Treaty Ports. In spite of certain recent
changes of mechanical character, due to the adoption of
some of our most useful inventions, socially speaking,
the Chinaman may still be said to ‘wear the pigtail.’

Nevertheless, education is being modihed, and
moves more and more in the direction of our sciences,
though the results have hitherto been no more than
mediocre. I shall speak of them elsewhere, and set
forth the facts. For I have been following the move-
ment for twenty years. I have been able to study China
at leisure, and in intimate contact with all classes of
society from the mandarin to the peasant, or, lower still,
to the poor coolie, the pariah of China, who toils along its
rough and broken tracks laden like the beast of burden
he replaces for want of roads passable to wheeled traffic.

Apart from this intimate contact there is no means
of familiarizing oneself with the Asiatic mind and its
ways, which are often difficult to interpret. Yet this
complexity seems an amusing pastime to many tourists
and travellers who, on their return to France, discuss
and perorate upon all the problems of immense China,
even posing in the Press as experts upon these ques-
tions. Not for a moment do they consider whether they
have the right thus to lead public opinion astray.
Moreover, how do they do their work? With a pot of
gum and a pair of scissors, borrowing anywhere without
the least scruple.

The study which is to follow should be a useful
lesson for every nation.

*5

CHAPTER II

THE CHINESE FAMILY

W HILE it may be a commonplace to say that the
family is the paramount social unit, the state-
ment is specially applicable to China. This primitive
organization forms in China a solid entity, held together
by natural and artificial ties. Tradition, religion and
law combine to cement its unity and to uphold if. So
strong indeed is the Chinese family that it delights in
a splendid isolation, depending on its own resources
and shunning contact with others. Hence the influences
which in other countries lead families to form a larger
aggregate and then associate these groups in a State
are so weak in China that they can hardly be said to
operate, except in societies formed for a special purpose,
such as trade guilds composed of those who sell the
same goods. Even these guilds remain isolated and do
not combine to bring about a reform which would be
to their common advantage. Thus all traders and
manufacturers have a common interest in the thorough
reconstruction of the roads, which are not only inade-
quate but in a lamentable condition. Yet throughout
the ages no combined effort at improvement has ever
been attempted. The prime mover in such an innova-
tion would meet with the indifference of corporations
less directly interested in the reform, and powerful
groups having the ear of the authorities would withhold
their help. We have here, together with its specializa-
tion in purely literary studies, and the total absence of
scientific culture, one of the chief causes which have

i6

THE CHINESE FAMILY

kept China in the same position as it stood at its first
conquests, and have fixed it in its first commercial and
industrial methods. This stagnation has affected all
classes, so that an immense nation formed of brilliant
elements has become mummified, or rather has for
thousands of years lain in a lethargic slumber.

This shy isolation of the family has had the natural
consequences. It has stopped the growth of that feeling
which inspires a people to muster its forces for the
defence of a common inheritance. Patriotism does not
exist in China, or rather there is so little of it that it is
quite insufficient to organize protection against any
enemy. There is no such word in the language, and it
requires I know not how many periphrases to convey
its meaning to the Chinaman. Even then one is not
sure that he understands. Far removed from his mind
is the idea of a larger whole which may call for the
renunciation of family interests and even for the sacri-
fice of oneself for the sake of others who, though living
at a distance, belong to the same community. Can he
grasp the idea that he who lives in the south will suffer
from the rebound of the invasion of the northern prov-
inces, that he will suffer because of the sufferings of his
brother whom he does not know, whose interests are
not his? No, he is incapable of entertaining such a
strange idea; he will listen to it only to contradict.
This I frequently noticed in the Russo-Japanese War.
In Szechwan had you questioned any person whatsoever
inthestreet, and asked his opinion on the calamities that
were crushing his compatriots in Manchuria, he would
have replied that such affairs were no concern of his.

17

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

China thus does not form what we call one great
family, united in effort and the need of mutual defence.
There exists only the individual surrounded by a little
group of which he is chief. There are no citizens in
China. What need for wonder then that the Great
Empire has always offered such feeble resistance to
European aggression, that the Colossus has proved so
weak!

What, then, is this Chinese family with its marvel-
lous organization and its powerful self-government.?
It is summed up in the father, a sort of demi-god, whose
authority is absolute; not only can he sell his children
for slaves, but he has the right to put them to death; it
is easy to see that his authority may become tyranny.

It is true that a new and more humane code has been
decreed of late years, but it is not in force.

The mother is a negligible quantity; she does not
count; her power over her child, her son in particular,
is very limited. As soon as he reaches the age of three
or four years, he is under the orders of his father alone;
his mother has no longer the right to whip him, and his
reign of little god-tyrant can begin. The daughter has
no such privilege; she will be a slave all her life, with no
will of her own, no influence, systematically kept in
crass ignorance, relegated to the society of the female
slaves. From birth the abyss which separates the male
infant from the other is expressed trenchantly in a pop-
ular saying. ‘What is it.? A pearl or a tile.?’ is the ques-
tion asked by the neighbour of the man whose wife has
just given birth to a child.

The ‘pearl’ is of course the son, and the ‘tile’ the
l8

THE CHINESE FAMILY

daughter. The mother herself is never proud of the
birth of a girl, so strong are the prejudices against her.
Her distress is a feeling of resentment rather than of
pity, - resentment that she has brought into the world
a little despised creature without prestige in the family
circle rather than the higher emotion of maternal pity,
which foresees the miserable destiny of effacement and
humiliation in store for this little one during the whole of
her life. The mother herself will often be her daugh-
ter’s worst tyrant. She will take vengeance on her for
the son’s contempt of her authority, for her grievances
as a wife, and her sufferings as a daughter-in-law.

The sufferings of the daughter-in-law! They are
great indeed, out of all proportion to the annoyances
which our French women may have to endure from a
mother-in-law. Treated with indifference by the family
as a whole, she is the slave of her husband’s mother,
who puts her to the hardest work of the house if she is
of lowly rank, or exacts from her the servility of a slave
if she belongs to the mandarin class. She is at times
subjected to such outrage, such cruel treatment, that
in despair she is driven to suicide. This is frequently
the end of young Chinese wives, and can be accounted
for by the complete absence of any support and conso-
lation in those about her. Her husband himself gen-
erally does not think of defending her, and all the less
if his father shows any hostility to the young woman,
because perhaps in a moment of anger she has let fall
some not very respectful words about him. It even
happens that the father is the first to slander his daugh-
ter-in-law, charging her with misdeeds in the presence

*9

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

of his son, and justifying thus the rigours of her
mother-in-law. He acts in revenge, for spite, because
the girl has rebuffed his advances to her. A case like
this is evidently fairly common, since it has passed
into a proverb, ‘Old bulls like to eat the tender grass.’
This expression is not used in a general sense, at any
rate in Szechwan, but is applied only to fathers-in-law.

The young wife is panic-stricken, not daring to con-
fide even in her husband, for fear of being accused of
falsehood by the seducer, whose position and authority
and the respect which surrounds him at every moment
of life will make it easy for him to deny the accusation,
above all when it comes from a creature so contemptible
as a daughter-in-law. For the paternal authority is
terrifying indeed! M. Bons d’Anty told us that in
Yunnan he had seen a drama enacted, difficult for us
with our different ideas of family life to conceive of. A
young wife, exposed to the constant persecutions of her
father-in-law, at last so far lost control of herself as to
abuse him. He called his son as witness of the indig-
nity, and ordered him to get rid of this shrew who had
failed in the duty of filial piety. The son on that
occasion refused, liut the same thing happening a few
days later he dared no longer disobey the command of
his parent, and seizing an axe, smashed in his wife’s
skull. This act of savagery went unpunished, for if
the mandarin had intervened and tried to bring the
murderer to justice, he would have provoked protests
from every family in the community, and roused a
general insurrection. The whole population would
have risen to snatch out of prison a man whose act

20

THE CHINESE FAMILY

could defy all human law as long as it avenged an out-
rage on filial piety.

As the young wife finds herself defenceless against
the ills that assail her, and as her education, teaching
absolute submission, has not prepared her to struggle,
she has no other hope than to seek in death the end
of her sufferings. She goes the more quickly to suicide
as she knows nothing of life, and has since her birth
lived like a recluse in the interior of the house, even
though she belongs to a high class of society. The
streets even are unknown to her; she has passed
through them at rare intervals, shut up in her chair
with the curtains carefully closed, on visits to relatives
or friends. She has never been inside a shop to buy
little feminine trifles, or to order a dress that she fan-
cies. For her there are no holidays in the country, no
excursions, no merry picnics, no happy life in the open
air. Engrossed in some embroidery work in the inner
apartments of the house, the young girl does not even
seek from time to time to escape the close atmosphere
of her room. She does not know what it means to
breathe freely in a wide space. She has never dreamed
of the country and of wide horizons; the garden of the
family is the secluded spot from which she can gaze
on the skies, if such a spectacle is capable of interesting
her. And yet she goes there but rarely. Her walks
are very short, for her shapeless and tortured feet,
causing a latent suffering ever ready to turn into actual
pain, soon compel her to a fatal repose. Young girls
of Europe, always aspiring after more liberty, rejoice
in the lot that has fallen to you, and if to some of you

21

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

your freedom appears too limited, think then of your
sisters of the Far East, and compare their fate to yours.

The young Chinese wife commits suicide by hang-
ing herself. But in disappearing, she knows that she
has made vengeance certain, and that her cruel adopted
family will soon expiate all the ill-treatment they have
inflicted on her. Her death is the signal for the inter-
vention of her own family. A suit begins, and the
lawyers, a redoubtable scourge, more frightful in China
than in any other place, descend upon the house of the
father-in-law. For him it is ruin. The magistrate and
his satellites will loose hold of their prey only when it is
entirely consumed. Hence one great preoccupation of
the mother-in-law is a strict supervision of her son’s
wife to prevent her suicide. If the latter as a result of
harsh treatment has to take to her bed, and feeble in
health succumbs to a malady whose end has been hast-
ened by cruelty, her family is excluded from all ground
of action, as long as the other can produce numerous
medical prescriptions showing that many drugs have
been administered. In such a case death is considered
natural and no responsibility can be placed on anyone.

Young wives who commit suicide are naturally the
exception, but it is painful to have to admit that these
women, who as daughters-in-law have suffered ill-
treatment, inflict as mothers the same outrages and the
same sufferings on their daughters and daughters-in-
law.

There exists a physical torture very easy to apply in
China; it consists in drawing more tightly than usual
the bands which wrap the small foot of a wretched

22

THE CHINESE FAMILY

child in process of mutilation. In the street I have
sometimes been present at such a scene, and truly few
things are so distressing as to see a little girl writhing
with pain, while the mother draws the bandages ever
tighter. One could not be deceived; it was not a
mother endeavouring to endow her child with an
irresistible attraction, but a harpy, enraged and yelling
like a wild beast, whose cruelty was only the more
provoked by the resistance she encountered.

Happily there are exceptions to the general con-
tempt for the weaker sex, and to the brutal treatment
which is its frequent result. I have known families
where mother and daughters maintained a share of
independence and authority, and the consequence was
peace and harmony in the home, and the absence of all
behaviour calculated to wound the dignity of woman.
One must hope that such manners, more conformable
to higher social ideals, will develop more and more.

The barbarous custom of mutilating the foot tends
not to disappear but to become rarer. High man-
darins have given the example. But it is easy to under-
stand that this custom will long resist all efforts at
reform, since it has become the most characteristic
mark of beauty in the Chinese woman. The foot of
the European woman seems to the Chinaman the last
word in deformity. Nothing can prevent or more
easily break off a marriage than any deception in the
size of the future wife’s foot, and the realization by the
would-be bridegroom that the ‘golden lily’ is of larger
dimensions than those inferred from the examination
of the lady’s shoe.

23

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

The position of inferiority assigned to the Chinese
woman as compared with the man at first surprises
the European, and causes him to formulate certain
criticisms which are derived less from a rigorous and
thorough examination of the causes of this inferiority
than from his prejudices against a state of affairs
obviously at variance with our traditional ideas of
woman’s role. But before talking loudly of Chinese
blunders in this respect it would be prudent to ascer-
tain what is the origin of these social usages which are
not peculiar to China but are spread throughout the
Orient.

The Chinese philosophers and instructors, after
having studied woman and carefully taken into account
her good qualities and defects, thought it well to be
on their guard, and to take certain precautions. Their
estimate of the situation was prudent, but they exag-
gerated the precautions which they thought it neces-
sary to take against a certain lack of physical and
moral equilibrium which they had observed in her.
Since they had weighed her and found her too light
and too frivolous, they concluded that self-control
and reason could not be the predominant qualities
in a creature supremely emotional and susceptible, and
that it was accordingly necessary to keep her under
strict guardianship. Harmonizing their action with
the rigorous deductions of exact observation, they
decided that servitude was the logical and normal
condition of existence for a woman. They did not see
that in so doing they were injuring her moral and
physical health, and they did not guess that by prac-

24

THE CHINESE FAMILY

tising too much restriction they were aggravating her
faults, and enfeebling her good qualities, thus depriv-
ing themselves of an ally always valuable when wisely
led. It is into the opposite error that we Europeans
have fallen, creating gradually an artificial being
further and further removed from true womanhood, a
being reduced to the functions of a doll and of a false
idol, who is decked out, to whom incense is burnt, a
doll who too often becomes a tyrant, noisy and impu-
dent in the exercise of her power, and who knows
neither rule nor measure.

The young wife’s lot improves a little after she has
given birth to a son. A son brings general rejoicing;
the ancestors leap for gladness in their tombs, and the
father is now secure of religious rites after his death,
he knows that his after-life will be fortunate, and that
his offspring will give scrupulous heed to his wants
in the other world.

The daughter cannot be the priestess of such a reli-
gion; she is deemed unworthy. Therefore her birth
is never hailed with joy; the head of the family, ego-
tistically absorbed by his future in the tomb, regards
her arrival with indifference. She will grow up simply
to marry, and produce children, her true function
being to furnish society with celebrants for ancestor-
worship. As a wife she will await in anguish the com-
ing of the little pontiff, and when he is born she will
for long years have no other interest than to see him
grow up for as early a marriage as possible. For then,
as an alleviation to her lot, some fragment of authority
is hers; she has now the right to govern the new bride,

25

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

to impose her will upon her, to shift the household
burdens on to her shoulders, to make her suffer all
the petty cruelties of which up to that moment she
has had full measure.

In every poor family the birth of a daughter is
regarded as a calamity, an intolerable burden. A
father is not asked how many daughters he has, but
rather what is the number of useless mouths that he
has to support. Moreover, at certain periods of the
year, when the stocks are exhausted and the harvest
has proved to be meagre, it comes natural fb him
some evening to leave one of his daughters in a neigh-
bouring field, stripped of all clothing. If she is only a
few days or a few months old, the sharp cold of the
night will quickly kill her; if not, the pigs on their
morning round will finish the deed of cruelty or help-
lessness committed the evening before. In the same
way the artisan will fling his child into a street corner.

I have intentionally written ‘helplessness,’ for poverty
is so terrible in China, and altruistic sentiment, by
reason of the general wretchedness, is so little devel-
oped, that parents are driven to renounce the idea of
bringing up all their children, and the despised daugh-
ter is always the one to be sacrificed.

Confronted with such acts, European nations are
quick to give up to general contempt and indignation
a people which forgets the first and most sacred of
duties. They forget that among them the deadly work
is otherwise accomplished, but is not less opposed to
humanitarian principles and has the same consequences
for society. The Chinese mother has the same feelings

26

THE CHINESE FAMILY

as the European mother, and though in certain circum-
stances she commits an act of obvious cruelty, she has
no intention of doing wrong; there is no more food
for the child; it must die of famine. It would perish
in the hut if a superstitious fear did not drive her to
expose it outside. Great misfortune might fall on the
family if the victim succumbed inside the house. It
must be said very emphatically that it is an absolute
and cruel necessity which drives parents to this mur-
derous exposure.

The economic life of the old empire is so precarious,
those of its resources now exploited are so restricted
in quantity, that the majority of its inhabitants live
from hand to mouth at the mercy of an atmospheric
disturbance which may bring drought or excessive
rain. Nowhere will our philanthropists find a more
heartbreaking destitution to relieve. Though there
may be extreme poverty in some countries of the West,
at least people do not die of hunger here as they do
in the Far East. And mark how virtue is always
rewarded. If the Western nations will assure the
Chinaman’s daily bread by teaching him how to exploit
the wealth existing in his land, wealth of which he is
now ignorant, they will increase their own resources,
they will promote the comfort of their own people.
Proof of my words will be found later when I come
to the study of the economic question.

It is not the daughter only who is a useless mouth;
there is also the old man, who undergoes the same
fate as she. One winter evening when he is absent
from the house, he is ‘forgotten.’ To the desperate

27

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

appeals of his quavering voice the door does not open ;
he dies. There was no more rice, no more maize
cake to spare for him, not even the meagre slice of
salted vegetable. It is fate, one can but bow to it,
and the relatives feel no disgrace, and do not realize
their barbarity. Thus ends sometimes, very rarely, let
us hope, a being so respected in the Middle Empire -
an old man, who, in a family where material needs
were assured, would be surrounded with veneration
and kindly attentions.

Before hurling our thunders against the barbarity
of the Chinaman, let us analyse the facts, and con-
sider the lamentable economic position of an old
nation, slumbering in the routine of ages, and thus
condemned to the direst necessities. The evil is cur-
able; it is to be hoped that the white race will some
time forget the jealousies which divide its nations to
come to the help of a very aged branch of the human
family, hardened and driven from the right path by
misfortunes beyond its endurance.

When I have explained what a gulf separates the
husband from the wife, even at the hours when the
different members of the family unite for meals, I
shall have finished my description of the Chinese home.
At no moment of her life can the mother sit with her
children at the table of her lord and master. He eats
alone, without ever deigning to share his repast with
his wife; even the sons are not invited to his table.
The intimate daily gatherings of the family in our
country, the talk of the evening after the day’s work,
when father and mother and children question one

28

THE CHINESE FAMILY

another, express their opinions, and discuss their plans
for the future, this confidence and mutual support do
not exist in China. There is strict separation between
those who ought to be mingled in an affectionate
equality and form a single soul with aspirations in
common.

What follows from such a state of things? The
result is that filial respect in China is made up of fear
rather than of true affection - that the child cannot
regard his father with the tenderness and unselfish-
ness which can be seen in families of the white race.
It has been said that fear is the beginning of wisdom;
that is true, but it will be noticed that the proverb is
far from alleging that fear is the whole of wisdom. It
stops in time, permitting us to infer that a natural
spontaneous affection, free from all constraint, will
produce more devotion and more fidelity than the
filial piety imposed on the young Chinaman. This
deduction is so true that the moment one studies the
family organization of the Celestial Empire at close
quarters, it becomes evident that this paternal author-
ity based on fear and on the calculated prestige of
strict isolation has had to be solidly buttressed by
legislation to produce the expected affect. The most
terrible penalties were formulated against the unnatural
son who fell short in the most sacred of duties, the
adoration of the god who had procreated him. Taking
into account the horrible character of these penalties
and their refined cruelty, it is logical to infer that the
reign of paternal tyranny was not established without
collision and revolt, for all exaggeration of authority is

29 D

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

inevitably followed by reaction. The legislator, how-
ever, triumphed over the last show of opposition, and
one day definitely confirmed the absolute power of
the father over the family. The Chinaman submitted
to the law, and departures from the old order are now
rare. No race submits so passively as his to a yoke
which it has once been constrained to accept. Even in
the future, attempts to throw off the yoke will be rare.

To give an idea of the frightful severity of the
punishments which fall upon the son whom madness
has driven to attempt the life of his father, it will be
sufficient to mention that the torture of the ‘hundred
thousand fragments’ was invented for the punishment
of such a crime, and that the city in which the foul
murder had been committed was condemned to dis-
appear - to be razed to the ground.

30

CHAPTER III

THE CHINESE HOUSE

I N describing the Chinese house of the present day,
we describe the same house that has been built for
thousands of years; everything is unchangeable in
China, the dwelling like all else. There are not thirty-
six types of houses, with styles to correspond with
different epochs; no, the type evolved does not present
any variety in its main lines, and when the rich China-
man builds his kong kouan (town house) or country
mansion he will not be able to obtain from his architect
a design which differs from that of his neighbour. You
do not see in the suburbs of any town in the empire
that variety of mansions, villas, bungalows and cottages
found in our country, in which the taste and originality
of each owner have been given free expression. All
the rich are housed in the same way, and the dwelling
of the poor man is simply a copy of that of the rich,
only on a smaller scale. The residence goes more or
less further back, its wings are more or less extended,
the blocks of buildings separated by as many interior
courts may be more or less numerous according to the
magnitude of the site, but you will find everywhere
not only the primitive plan but the exact reproduction
of the existing model.

The materials employed are brick, pure clay, or clay
mixed with earth, which forms, with a wattling of bam-
boo, what we call ‘mudwall’; if bamboo is not used,
you have then an earthen wall, such as can be seen in
some rural regions of France.

31

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Stone is very rarely used; sometimes, for the founda-
tions, but never for the construction of walls. Marble
is still less made use of; I never saw in Chengtufu,
the capital of a province vaster than France, a single
private mansion where a morsel of the precious lime-
stone was introduced into the building, though it
abounds in the valley of the Yang-Tse and the moun-
tains which enclose some of its tributaries. For the
roof, one sees tiles everywhere; only in the country
thatched houses sometimes occur, but very rarely -
more rarely than in Europe.

I noticed of late that in Szechwan, though it is from
all points of view the most favoured part of Chinese
territory, brick, which allows of true building, even
with thin walls, and provides a comfortable dwelling,
is less and less in use; it is replaced by wood and mud-
wall, which are so much cheaper. The reason is that
China, in contrast with peoples of the white race whose
comfort is continually increasing by means of the
rational and scientific use of their resources, is becom-
ing poorer and poorer, and her destitution, which I
have already described as frightful, will grow worse
unless Europe comes to her aid, and, vanquishing the
routine of centuries, leads the Chinaman to the adop-
tion of methods less superannuated and less destructive.

Brick, then, is employed more and more rarely, for
it has become too dear for the resources of the mass
of people nowadays. Structures of wood and mud do
not last, it is true; but as neither State nor private
individuals ever have any ready money to spare, they
content themselves with building for the time being.

32

THE CHINESE HOUSE

Iron is very abundant all over China, but it is not
used in house-building; it would, however, very advan-
tageously replace the green wood which they employ,
and which is becoming scarcer and scarcer, and conse-
quently dearer. But to employ iron they would have to
instal foundries with plant, for these do not yet exist
in the empire.

What, then, is the Chinese house like, and in what
order are its rooms arranged.^

To give as exact a description as possible, I shall
take as a type the kong kouan, or private mansion, in
which are combined all the perfections of domestic
building. It is composed of three blocks of one-
storied buildings (san tchong tang), situated one behind
the other, and separated by two interior paved court-
yards. On the right and left of these courtyards are
buildings uniting the different blocks, the tchen fang',
they form what we may call the wings (eul fan^ or the
ears of the mansions, eul signifying ‘ear.* Very broad
gates separate the principal quarters and the courtyards
from each other. These gates have side openings for
ordinary everyday traffic; the great leaves fly apart only
for official receptions or for guests held in special honour.

The block at the far end is the most important; it
comprises generally a large central reception room, and
on each side two other rooms which lodge the family,
especially the women, who are always relegated to the
most retired part of the house. Besides the great room,
ta tang, there are little reception rooms on the wings,
the siao tang, generally two in number. The dimensions
of these rooms are small, 12 to 15 feet long, 9 to 12

33

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

feet broad, and 9 feet high. The other rooms destined
for lodging members of the family or for their work
or for the servants are of the same dimensions, or
rather smaller. There are some very tiny rooms, but
quite large enough for Chinese ideas; they have a cur-
rent saying, ‘However rich a man, however sumptuous
his palace, a room of 8 feet square is quite large enough
for him to sleep in.’ There is generally flooring or
paving in the principal rooms, but ceilings are rarer.
When a ceiling exists, it is often cut quite through at
the middle and at the sides, which is an advantage in
summer, but makes the rooms bitterly cold in the
winters of the Central and Northern provinces.

In designating the central room of the principal
block as a reception room, I have been supposing that
the master of the house has a tse tang^ or ancestors’
temple, built outside in the garden in the middle of a
clump of bamboos, for instance, but that is not always
the case; if not, then this central room must not be
called reception-room but tse tang^ the sanctuary, which
the family visits regularly to carry to the ancestors the
tribute of adoration which is their due. The entrance
to this holy place is round, I do not know why. The
religious tribute brought to the ancestors is never
neglected by the Chinese, for on it rests the whole
edifice of his life’s happiness and prosperity. The day
in which the manes of the sienjen cease to receive vener-
ation and their due share of offerings, the ruin of the
sacrilegious family will be at hand. Thus the sanctuary
is rigorously maintained. But the ancestor is not the
only power feared; there is also the dragon, he who

34

THE CHINESE HOUSE

hurls into the air good and bad influences, from which
riches or poverty, success or bankruptcy emanate. To
keep out evil influences, a very high wall is always
built opposite the entrance gate of the mansions; you
will not fail to be impressed by its massive appearance
every time you pass one of these mansions.

In continuing our examination we notice that the
lighting of the house leaves much to be desired, as the
number of windows is insufficient; there are some open-
ing on the interior courts, but none on the outer side
which looks upon the open space surrounding the build-
ings. All the rooms are so gloomy in consequence that
to a European eye they look like cellars. The windows
are not like ours; they are openings furnished with grat-
ings on which transparent paper ispasted,forglass is un-
known in China except to a few mandarins or merchants
who have lived on the coast in the large port towns, and
have brought some to adorn their kong kouang. Venetian
shutters are also unknown in the interior of China.

I stated that the various blocks of buildings were
of only one storey; at Chengtufu, however, I have seen
mansions surmounted by an attic, not a real storey. The
reason for this sort of construction is the necessity for
having some means of escape from the yearly floods
which invade all the lower parts of the town. As a
general rule, moreover, every Chinese house has its
courts inundated whenever the rain lasts for some time;
this is because they do not trouble to give the ground
a slope for drainage, and their system of conduits or
simple gutters is reduced to practically nothing.

To the whole question of getting rid of flood water,

35

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

SO important to the European, even apart from the
question of hygiene, the Chinaman is completely indif-
ferent, primitive creature as he is in some aspects.

Though the mansion occasionally has an attic, it
never, on the contrary, possesses a cellar, and its floors
almost touch the soil, making the rooms very damp.
The Chinaman has never felt the need of building a
cellar for two reasons - first, because his ideas of
hygiene are most elementary, and, secondly, because,
unlike ourselves, he has no store of provisions to pre-
serve from year to year. He has no beer and no wine
to house and to mature, no spirit, happily, or very little,
only a few jars, his ordinary drink being tea. He has
no reserves of food, as he lives from hand to mouth.
The shopkeepers themselves have their shops very
meagrely stocked, possessing only what is strictly
required for current sale.

The kong kouan is wanting in one object which the
European considers indispensable - a fireplace; there
is no such thing. At Chengtufu, where the cold is very
biting during several months of the year, there is no
means of keeping warm, for want of a fire and the neces-
sary chimney. The only apparatus for warming some-
times used is the ho /tf«,asort of brazier, which burns in
the middle of the room,and consumes either ordinary coal
or charcoal. In France, such an arrangement would be
dangerous and lead to accident ; not so in China, where the
doors and windows are badly fitted, and there are many
cracks and openings where there ought not to be any.

In the North they have the kang^ a bed of masonry
furnished with a furnace, permitting direct heating.

36

THE CHINESE HOUSE

There is little to say on the decorative side of the
kong kouan\ it is a simple primitive building, occasion-
ally gilded, or adorned with characterless mouldings.
Carving properly so called is found only in temples.

To sum up, the Chinese house supposed to be luxur-
ious possesses little comfort; badly lighted, too much
or too little ventilated, very damp, of dubious cleanness,
it is unhealthy, and has none of the many advantages
which science has conferred on our modern dwellings.
It is far inferior to the houses of our ancestors, buildings
constructed hundreds of years ago, which at least have
solid thick walls, affording shelter from cold and heat.
In short, one cannot better characterize the Chinese
house than by calling it a ‘barrack’ or a ‘bandbox.’

What is most astonishing is that the same type is
employed in entirely different climates - tropical in the
South, glacial in the Northern provinces.

Having described the most complete type of the
Chinese house, it will be easy to recognize the deriva-
tive forms as soon as one knows that they are all reduc-
tions from the big model, without any variation, from
the house with two blocks to the house with a single
block, and from that to the simple hut which repro-
duces just one room of the kong kouan described.

As for the temples, which represent the great period
of Chinese architecture, they are indeed beautiful and
often elegant, with pavilions whose graceful roofs are
supported by sculptured columns of great delicacy. But
looked at as a whole you do not find the grandeur, the
boldness of conception and execution, the majesty of
our cathedrals. The chief building of a pagoda, with

37

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

its slender column of stone or lacquered wood directly
supporting a superstructure never higher than 25 to
30 feet, cannot be compared with the imposing mass
of the Christian temple, whose massive piers, united by
great arches, support a new edifice rising 60 feet high.
The graceful bell towers of Chinese construction are
also left far behind by our towers and steeples, marvels
of strength and beauty, where stone, vanquished and
tamed, is moulded like supple clay to every caprice of
the genius of sculpture.

You will not find, moreover, in China those great
architectural works raised in the course of ages for kings
and peoples by sublime artists, whose grandiose ideas
were boldly executed at a time when the resources of
modern architecture were unknown to them. If Greek
architecture be compared with the most admired crea-
tions of the Celestial Empire, one is quick to perceive
that the Chinaman can present nothing so grand, so
powerful - nothing immortal. And if we look further
back to the descriptions which Chinese poets and his-
torians have written of the works of their potentates,
what is there to equal the marvels of Nineveh and
Babylon.? What is the famous Great Wall, regarded as
an architectural feat.? Nothing but a big, high wall,
very, very long. And what of the irrigation works, the
Grand Canal? They are simply monuments of patience.
Intelligence, originality of conception, real science -
these had no part in them. Immense herds of labourers,
a whole people transformed into navvies, digging pain-
fully along boundless plains, that is all ; - muscles, but
no brains.

38

CHAPTER IV

THE CHINESE CITY

I CAN NOT do better than take, as an example of the
Chinese city, the capital of Szechwan, Chengtufu,
where I lived for many years studying it at leisure.
With its population made up of elements from every
province, it is a good type of the urban agglomerations
of the old Empire. It is a fine city, which at one period
was raised to the rank of capital of the Empire.

I must say a few words about Loui Cheng, or the
Tartar quarter, which though it has disappeared since
the revolution of 1 9 1 1 has its interest from the point
of view of history and human evolutions. We shall see
how a warlike race such as the Manchus can rapidly
degenerate when taken away from its geographical and
social environment. It is a lesson for all peoples to
meditate on.

The town of Chengtufu is surrounded by a vast wall
almost uniformly square, 25 to 30 feet high and as
broad, and 1 2 J miles in extent, built of superb bricks
very much larger than those which we usually make.
Brick is of all building materials the most used by the
son of Han.^ Even if he has excellent stone under his
hand, he never uses it except in such structures as
bridges, where large blocks are necessary. In every
place where he finds clay he makes his favourite build-
ing material, the brick which his far-back ancestors
must have invented on the first land they occupied on

t The Chinese have adopted the name from their great Han D^nas^r.

39

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

the shores of the Hoang-ho, where stone is not to be
found.

The flat summit of the wall is so wide and at the
same time so level and well paved with broad bricks
that it is possible to ride a bicycle on it. Nearly at the
middle of the north, south, east and west faces of the
wall are gateways of colossal dimensions, veritable
tunnels 30 feet in length, the vault of which is not less
than 25 feet above the ground. These gates bear the
names of the four cardinal points of the compass -
East Gate {tong men\ West Gate (si men\ North Gate
(j>e men) and South Gate (Ian men). Each gateway
forms an enormous semicircular mass of masonry, pro-
jecting out from the vertical plane of the walls. In the
middle of this mass rises a one-storied bastion of very
solid construction, whose fa9ade and cornices are
adorned with symbolic beasts in sculptured stone, recall-
ing those which are to be seen upon the walls of our
mediaeval cathedrals.

At the four corners of the town are found immense
stretches of grassland, green throughout the year,
which serve as parades or drilling grounds. These
parades are not, moreover, the only spaces in the city
not built upon. A considerable portion of the area
enclosed by the walls is used for market gardening,
which has always been carried out on a very large scale
in fortified towns, in anticipation of the sieges which
they may have to sustain. I reckon that in Chengtufu
not less than a third of the total land is thus cultivated.

Of the four quarters into which the town is divided,
the most important and the most remarkable is the

40

THE CHINESE CITY

Tartar quarter, more often called the Tartar Camp —
Loui Cheng or Mancheng.

This Camp occupies the west part of the town; it
has its own enclosing wall, which, however, merges on
the outside into the great wall itself. It constitutes, in
reality, a sort of enclave^ separated from the rest of the
town by a vast interior wall, the two ends of which
curve slightly before backing up against the common
rampart. It communicates with the city by four great
gates which close every evening at sundown, thus isolat-
ing the Manchu conquerors. If a revolt or disorder
of any kind broke out in Chengtufu, the Tartar Camp
would take no notice and would be completely indif-
ferent. Never would it intervene with its intrepid
horsemen and archers, formerly so valiant, to-day fallen
so low, since they deserted their steppes and the im-
mense plains of Manchuria and Mongolia to occupy
China and live in Capua. Repose has emasculated them,
and they are at the present time no more than a shadow
of the famous warriors whose hordes rode invincible
across the whole of Asia, and overran half Europe.
Shut up behind their walls, they would let the China-
men cut each other’s throats; they would lend no aid
to the Viceroy Governor and his troops. The Viceroy
had no authority over the Tartars; he had no power
to call up the clans, the various ‘Banners’ under which
the warriors were ranged. One man only commanded
them at his will, the Tsiang-Kuin, the Tartar Marshal,
delegate of the Son of Heaven, his true representative
in the capital, invested with a part of the imperial omni-
potence. He was charged by the Court of Pekin to

41

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

observe and check all the high administrative acts of
the Viceroy and his Ministers. He made them the sub-
ject of special reports, sent direct to the Emperor by
his own couriers.

This was the precaution taken by the Manchu
Dynasty to make its authority secure in the Empire.
All the provincial capitals had their Tartar marshals
to supervise the high mandarins, who were Chinamen,
and thus prevent any attempt at rebellion. It must be
realized, however, that the domination of the victorious
Manchu thus exercised in every province rested on no
solid foundation. But tradition is so strong in China
and passive obedience, or rather absence of resistance,
so astonishingly great that, in spite of the hate and con-
tempt which the Chinaman professes for the Manchu,
he never stirred, and never sought to shake off his yoke.
Some hundreds of thousands of Manchus kept him, the
great civilized Chinaman, in subjection, driving him
where they would. He bore every outrage, even heard
himself called ‘the slave of the Tartar,’ lou tsai, of all
insults the most stinging; and all that he did was to
bow the head. It was necessary that foreigners should
come to his help and promote the revolution of 1 9 1 1
to put an end to his servitude.

The Loui Cheng is very regularly built; it contains
three great roads (or boulevards, if you like, though
narrower than those we are accustomed to see in our
towns) orientated north to south, parallel to each other,
and intersected at right angles by a series of cross-
roads, also always exactly parallel. The great central
avenue opens at its southern extremity into a horseshoe

4a

THE CHINESE CITY

shape, such as I have not seen in any other country.
The descendants of the Tartar hordes to whom the
horse of the steppe was at once fortune and the means
of activity have reproduced in those towns in which
they have settled the shape of the object which allowed
their coursers to tread any soil with impunity, in the
great rides which they achieved for the conquest of
Asia. In the hollow of the horseshoe is built the palace
of the Tstang-Kuin, the Tartar Marshal, with its num-
erous dependencies. It is entered by monumental doors
on which are painted the men chen^ or gods of the gate,
of gigantic dimensions. The great courtyard in front
of the building is grass-grown, and no one takes the
trouble to weed it. The buildings themselves are in a
state of extreme dilapidation, so badly kept in repair
that the Marshal and his court are barely sheltered
from the wind and rain. What is most remarkable in
the whole building are the entrance gates and the
venerable trees which surround the enclosing wall. The
whole extent of the palace, including courtyards and
gardens, is not more than five acres. The outskirts are
dreary and lifeless; there is no one to be seen except
from time to time a few soldiers with their red waist-
coats {hao koua), dirty and torn, who form a sort of
guard of honour, or rather police post.

I used to pass there very often on my walks, and I
had plenty of time to examine these warriors. Some
were very young, sixteen to eighteen years of age, and
some very old, long past their fifties. Some were one-
eyed, and some bandy-legged; in short, such brilliant
specimens of soldiers are to be seen only in China.

43

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

They belonged to the Viceroy, for the Tartar never
mounts guard.

The central avenue is paved with large stones, with
a track in the middle. If the paving had been done with
care, the street would have a fine appearance and would
be agreeable for the pedestrian; unhappily it was care-
lessly laid, and the general levelling is most faulty.

The secondary streets, at right angles to the great
arterial roads, run straight as a line. They are bordered
with fine trees alternating with clumps of bamboo,
behind which are screened the Tartar houses. The
trees are not planted in the road, but in the compounds
of the houses. There are chestnut trees and yews of
great size, walnuts whose large branches extend so far
that they often cover a surface of nearly 50 square yards.
There are pears, apples, plums, cherries and apricots in
nearly every garden. The most curious of these trees
is a cherry which never fruits but yields many superb
flowers, the corolla triple and quadruple. Among
scented and ornamental plants you may notice great
magnolias with large white or bright pink flowers, and
many varieties of the camellia, which is the favourite
flower of the Tartar ladies, who wear one in their hair
all the flowering season. Young and old, ugly and
pretty, they all stick a camellia in their chignons, and
walk about the streets thus adorned. I may also men-
tion rose-trees, jessamines, gardenias, myrtles, privets,
etc.

This wild profusion of trees and plants gives to the
Tartar camp the appearance of a wood, or rather a park,
2 miles long by i mile broad. In the summer the

44

THE CHINESE CITY

coolest and most delicious shade is to be found there,
enlivened by the song of innumerable birds, some of
which are in no way inferior to our nightingales and
blackbirds. There was one corner in particular which
we greatly preferred; it was crossed by a pretty brook
drawn from a small arm of the Min, which passed
through the great wall by a tunnel hollowed out for the
purpose, bathed the southern half of the Camp, and
escaped from the town by the north-east. It was bor-
dered by grassy slopes, trees and evergreen bushes,
the most beautiful adornment of its banks. Poplars and
aspens, particularly, flourished on its slopes, giving
shade to the clear water. There in summer one found
complete quiet and delicious coolness after the fatigues
of the day. We came on horseback, and while our
animals grazed on the banks, we followed the stream
on foot, walking sometimes as far as a ravishing little
pagoda, with its front ornamented with symbolic
figures and with charmingly elegant little bell turrets,
nestling under the finest trees of the Camp, — sometimes
directing our steps to the parade ground of the Tartar
‘Banners,’ an immense grassy space where beneath the
high wall their coursers gambolled. These animals pre-
sented a sharp contrast to the mounts of the conquering
Manchus of days gone by; nearly all thin, lame and
languid, they were no longer good for anything but to
carry a valet behind his master’s chair on ceremonial visits.

Besides the river, there are also in the Camp numer-
ous ponds, on the surface of which float the famous
lotus lilies with their lovely corollas, so celebrated by
the poets of the Flowery Kingdom, and so often repro-

45 E

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

duced in the pictures of its artists. When these graceful
flowers disappear, the pond looks like nothing but an
ugly sheet of dirty, yellow, impure water, the favourite
haunt of the nymphs - mosquitoes, which swarm on
the banks. Were it not for the great bamboos which
encircle these stinking pools, one would hardly recog-
nize in these nooks any of the poetry which the China-
man professes to meet there. A pond, in short,
however tiny, with its artificial rocks of vague and
undecisive form, is the grand motif of decoration in a
Chinese garden.

This petty counterfeiting of nature is really incom-
prehensible to those who admire her as she ought to
be admired. He who thus makes a travesty of her can-
not love her; besides, if he were not quite indifferent
to beauty unadorned, he would go to gaze on her in
her real setting - which he never does. When he leaves
the town, the Chinaman shuts himself up in his chair,
and the most striking landscapes seem to leave him
uninterested. He prefers the ugly miniature laid out
in his garden.

I have stated the extent of the Tartar city; its popu-
lation was estimated at about 10,000 inhabitants. The
Emperor supplied their every want. Every month all
the Tartar families received a ration of rice and other
provisions considered necessary for their upkeep. The
adult members of the families, men and women, lived
in the most complete and degrading idleness. The men
were to be seen standing on the threshold of their doors,
gazing vacantly into space, or smoking and chatting
with their neighbours. They had ceased to ride, except

46

THE CHINESE CITY

a few valets charged with the duty of couriers to the
Emperor. Their favourite amusement was to breed
birds, for whom they had a real passion. We used to
see them nearly every day on the river hanks, or in the
shady lanes, or on the slopes of the fortifications, carry-
ing on the palm of their hand a little cage often finely
carved, inside which was perched a little singing bird.
In summer the cage is furnished with a curtain to pro-
tect the little creature from heat and intense light; in
winter, it is slipped into a box with moving panels
which keep out the cold, and at the same time admit
a little light. These men in the prime of life spent thus
whole days walking about with their precious cages on
their palms. And as the cherished bird has still a marked
preference for the living insects on which he fed be-
fore his captvire, his master, the descendant of a fierce
Tartar warrior, to-day with admirable patience and con-
descension glides cautiously along the walls to seize
adroitly with his chopsticks the most agile and the most
wily insects, and bear them to the little gaping beak.
And if, when the morsel is greedily swallowed, the
‘precious jewel’ flaps its wings and gleefully trills, the
Manchu, bursting with solemn joy, utters a sonorous
guffaw, the echo of which might disturb the ancestral
ghosts, who would turn in their graves with shame.
Whereas formerly these warriors of old ran swift as
lightning, fierce as thunder, upon all the roads of the
world, cutting down, beating down th'i most redoubt-
able of their foes, their descendants to-day are taming
birds, and the victims which they slay are worms and
insects.

47

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

In the afternoon when I went for my walk round
the Camp, I used to meet in the neighbourhood of the
gates where the sellers of victuals, of lin soui (tit-bits —
bits of meat and vegetables), took up their stand, big
strong-looking youths, real Northern Manchus, who
were buying little savouries to eat with their ration of
rice. They used to walk away with the slow march of
cattle, carrying suspended at the end of a string a
slender packet of lin soui, — a thin slice of bacon, or a
little portion of cabbage, or a carrot or two. ^lound
their homes, however, by the side of the pleasure
garden, there is generally a large space of arable land
where they could easily grow vegetables, water being
plentiful everywhere; but they leave it waste; no one
touches it. All the people in the Camp prefer to con-
tent themselves with the meagre ration of the Emperor,
too meagre even for common soldiers, rather than in-
crease it by any labour whatsoever. The only land
under cultivation in the Tartar town, so fertile that it
yields an enormous quantity of vegetables of all kinds,
is worked by the Chinese; for never will a Manchu or
one of his household slaves take hoe or spade in hand.

The women are as idle as the men ; they spend their
days squatting on the threshold of their doors smoking
their pipe, or rather their cigar. Even little girls of
eight to ten years smoke their cigars, the same size as
our Londr^s, fixed in a long bamboo tube. The quan-
tity consumed by the fair sex, young and old, is con-
siderable; I was given the average figure as being
twenty cigars a day for officers’ wives with some means;
this amount does not entail a great expense, however,

48

THE CHINESE CITY

as tobacco is cheap in Szechwan. As, however, it is
very strong, it has a grievous effect on these Manchu
women, and gives them a stupefied air, which the less
becomes them because some of them, in the upper class
especially, have agreeable features.

The middle-class Tartar woman stays at home; when
she goes for her rare walks in the streets she wears in
her hair a camellia, or a peony, or some other flower
in season. We never saw her sewing or doing any
manual work as is the habit of her sex, not even em-
broidery, an employment reserved for Chinamen. The
long robe worn by the Manchu lady would be elegant
if it was properly cared for, but it is often dirty and torn,
and rarely mended by the female slave, who models
her conduct on that of her mistress. The wives and
daughters of officers are dressed on special occasions
in superb silk robes with fine embroidery, very becom-
ing, but these never walk abroad; they remain in the
home ; they are seen at most sometimes on the threshold
of their doors on a ffite day or some family solemnity.

The recreation of the Manchu lady in the course of
the day is the travelling pedlar - vendor of stuffs, of
dainties, of provisions, or even of fuel. The lady is very
greedy, and patronizes chiefly the vendor of tit-bits and
dainties, and accordingly often in a few days she
devours the little monthly pay of her soldier husband,
and for the rest of the time the household is reduced to
the rice ration. If a few sapfeques remain, the house-
wife buys a slice of cabbage or even a slice of carrot;
for a very large class of the Chinese and Manchu popu-
lation is reduced to such poverty that a carrot or a

49

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

turnip can be sold in bits; while a cabbage will be
divided into twenty or even thirty portions. Such facts
seem incredible to the European, but whoever will walk
about a Chinese town can see with his own eyes, at
leisure, curious scenes of buying and selling; the
quantity which changes hands will stagger him, while
the possibility of making use of such minute quantities
will puzzle him.

In winter it is the vendor of fuel whom the Tartars,
both men and women, await most impatiently, particu-
larly the fuel specialist who sells minute quantities of
charcoal, used for the no long tze (chaufferettes). They
seize eagerly their purchased handfuls, they light up
quickly, and according to their pecuniary means warm
their stomach and loins, or their stomach only.

I have striven to describe as exactly as possible the
Tartars whom I saw daily during many years. There
is no exaggeration in my account; it is the truth and
nothing but the truth. A powerful race possessing gifts
of organization and government, though less intelli-
gent than the real Chinese, has come to an end. They
conquered and ruled the great empire for three cen-
turies; they knew how to take remarkable measures to
maintain their omnipotence, but their reign seems to
be over. Fed by the Chinese, and despised by them all
the more in consequence, they have now lost the little
prestige left by their warrior ancestors. Their race is
perishing of idleness, and if it had not been for some
able men among them who had become civilian man-
darins and whom toil and struggle had stimulated, not
allowing them to fall into the ranks of the ‘do-nothing'

50

THE CHINESE CITY

mandarins, its bankruptcy would have been complete
long before now. Look at those renowned Tartars,
conquerors of so many nations, before whom our
fathers and all ancient Europe shuddered; look at them
to-day when the weather is chilly; they amble about
like the oxen they have become — they amble about
carrying two chaujfferettes for warmth. Yes, they dis-
appear from the ranks of the strong. They are no
longer the ‘Banners,’ but sheep without a shepherd.
They are dying of a prolonged ease.

The contempt of every elementary precaution, the
inconceivable neglect to provide means of drainage in a
region where the rains are torrential in the summer have
the result that parts of the Tartar city are completely
flooded during the months of July, August and Sep-
tember. The picturesque boulevard which runs along
the west wall and opens on the river, and the great
open space of which I have spoken, I have often seen
completely inundated and the road impassable in places
for days together. Such rare canals as were dug out
in former days have not been kept in repair, and are
consequently choked up, and the waters stagnate un-
disturbed. I have even noticed places where two or
three thrusts with the spade would have sufficed to clear
the outlet in a small drain; but no one in the Camp, out
of a population of ten thousand people, took this small
trouble, or even thought of effecting this simple bit of
clearance. Idleness is such that in certain streets all
the rubbish of every kind is thrown out in front of the
door, and ferments and decomposes there until it is
cleared away by the rains. But what is worse is that

51

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

certain forms of filth, not utilized by the Tartar, who
does no agricultural work, are placed by him just before
his door, in the middle of cabbage leaves and turnip
bought by him to be dried and transformed into nan
tsai (salted vegetable). The presence of this ordure
used to lead us, every time we passed, to make the
reflection that it would have been preferable to have
Chinamen as dwellers in the Camp, for then this ordure
would have been carefully gathered up, and never left
lying about. "

To-day there are no more Tartar cities in China;
their inhabitants were driven away in 19 ii by the
Chinese, whose vengeance was often cruel, as at Ou
Chang, for example, where many women and children
were massacred.

The town proper is laid out like the Camp, with
great regularity; the roads are all parallel with the inter-
secting streets at right angles, save some rare excep-
tions where they bend a little. One never finds streets
going transversely or bisected by a square surrounded
by houses, as in our towns, allowing short cuts from
one point to another. Not a single arrangement of this
kind is to be found in Chengtufu. The inhabited area
of the town is estimated at about 4,000 acres, while
the surface occupied by vacant plots or cultivated
ground and by parade grounds including that of the
Tartar city is above 2,000 acres. The total population,
including the suburbs, is 450,000. This aggregate is
certainly far removed from some estimates, but their
exaggeration at once strikes any one who has used his
eyes, and has not come to a conclusion without a

THE CHINESE CITY

serious preliminary study of certain problems arising
out of the conditions of social life in the empire.

Speaking generally, this very mixed population is
formed of indigenous elements and Chinese strictly so
called, with all the intermediate types resulting from a
hybridization which has been going on for centuries.
Taken as a whole, the people are rather inactive and
rather lacking in industry; the European who has seen
the great animation of Canton, or even of Tonquin, the
commercial capital, is quite astonished at the calm in
the streets, save in two or three principal thorough-
fares.

Another subject of amazement for us at Chengtufu
on arriving, was to note that every street was separated
from its neighbour by very high barriers shut every
evening like the gates of the great wall. The closing
of these barriers is a measure of precaution against
robbers, who always abound in Chinese towns, where
there are usually no police worth calling so. Close to
each barrier is a little cabin in which lodges a watchman
who sleeps so soundly that the smashing in of the gate
which it is his duty to watch would not wake him. I
have always been struck, in fact, whenever I have been
in a position to make observations, with the Chinaman’s
faculty of deep sleep, far sounder than that of the
European; it is very difficult to wake him when this
becomes necessary. He sleeps, besides, anywhere and
at any moment ; as soon as his work or other occupation
no longer keeps him in a state of consciousness, he falls
asleep, even on his feet. When he is carried about in
a chair or in a boat, if he is alone he will sleep for

53

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

hours and hours. The only time when he is wide awake
is when he is amusing himself; in that he is like a child.

The real guardian of the street is not he who sleeps
at either end of it, but he whose business it is to go his
round at the crossways and along the main thorough-
fares, beating a drum or clanging a cymbal; he is the
ta ken tsiang, the old night watchman of our French
towns, no longer with us to-day, but carefully preserved
in Chinese towns, where his role is of prime necessity.
The night has five watches; the first, announted by
gunshot, begins at sunset; the fifth ends at cockcrow.
The poor men who ply this occupation receive a ridicu-
lously small wage. I knew one of them, an excellent
old fellow suffering from rheumatism, who came often
to see me. When on his first visit I prescribed for him
a rather costly diet, he cried, ‘How could I get food
like that, I a penniless wretch, who earn no more than
one ligature and a half per month!’ (about 4fr. 50).
Yes, that was his monthly wage, and when his poor
old limbs refused to carry him, he was obliged to give
20 or 30 sap^ques a night to a substitute.

The Chinese street has to be guarded in this way
because there does not exist what we should call any
system of lighting; at its two extremities, but seldom
in the middle, there are two poor little lamps containing
a little colza oil. This lasts only for the first hours of
the evening; for the rest of the night there is complete
darkness.

All the streets are very narrow; they are generally
from 6 to 1 2 feet broad, very often 9 feet. The broadest
in Chengtufu is barely 1 5 feet. Some of them are very

54

THE CHINESE CITY

irregularly paved, and there are deep holes where the
stone has worn out. These holes are naturally dan-
gerous to the pedestrian, the coolie, the horses and beasts
of burden, but it does not occur to the municipal
administrators, who moreover do not possess the powers
of our municipal authorities, to do the necessary repairs,
so that the paving stones which are worn out or broken
are not replaced. These streets never have a side walk;
there is a central track formed of a single row of paving
stones placed very regularly end to end, and this is
the best cared for part of the roadway. Those streets
wholly unpaved consist only of beaten earth, so badly
cambered that the surface is never convex in the middle
with sloping sides; hence they store up the rains and
are transformed into lakes of mud. In summer especi-
ally, when the rains are very abundant, these ways
become impracticable for the European, and even
sometimes for the native when, for instance, rain falls
for two or three days in succession, leaving a foot of
water standing on the clay soil, which is so soaked that
it can absorb no more. Many a time in August or
September we have not been able to cross some streets
except on horseback, our animals up to the knees in
water - with the added risk of breaking their legs in
the numerous holes and throwing us into the muddy
lake. These streets have often a deep side ditch as well,
encroaching on the width of the road, which increases the
danger to traffic. Sometimes the whole town is flooded ;
the north quarter, being on higher ground than the
rest of the town, alone escapes. This is because, as in
the Tartar Camp, there is no system of drainage, no

SS

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

means for the water to escape. Theoretically, every
street is supposed to have its little canal, but this, which
is very inadequate in ordinary weather, is quite useless
during the great rains. These outlets besides are rarely
clear; all sorts of rubbish cause obstruction in a city
where there is no sewerage system nor any municipal
street cleaning.

All the houses in all the streets are limited to one
storey; hence they make up for their want of height
by the depth to which they stretch from their frontage.

In no part are there any sidewalks such as are found
in our towns; neither are there, as on our main roads,
boulevards planted with trees; there are no promenades,
no public gardens, not even the least little square
planted with shrubs and flowers. The Viceroy’s palace
(what a palace ! I shall describe it later), the big public
buildings, the yamens are never surrounded and bright-
ened by courtyards or gardens of flowers and orna-
mental shrubs; if there were any such, they would not
be open to the public. This great Chinese democracy,
so called, is in reality most rigorous on the amount of
liberty granted to the people; it never does anything
for the good of the people, much less for its enjoyment.
Trees are planted only round pagodas and certain
private buildings such as clubs, for instance, or temples
erected to the memory of great men. But in the last
case the subscribers to the monument alone have the
right to enjoy the gardens and the shade of the trees.

The streets of Chengtufu, like those of other Chinese
towns, are in some degree specialized; the general rule
is that two kinds of trades or shops should not occupy

56

THE CHINESE CITY

the same street. There are silk streets, embroidery streets
in large numbers, spinners, ribbon and trimming manu-
facturers, saddlers, furniture makers, jewellers, copper
workers, food shops, etc. All these various bodies have
their factories and shops in different streets and quar-
ters. The system of our mediaeval guilds is still in
existence here, with more solid and lasting foundations;
some of the guilds are most tyrannical, ordering the
method and regulating the output without any care for
the interests of the public, who rarely, however, show
any resentment. The silk guild has a particularly exact-
ing monopoly, and is upheld by the authorities, who
hold in respect the power of its wealth.

There are also trade guilds such ^s tanners, leather-
dressers or curriers. To the amazement of the Euro-
pean all these industries and others as unclean and as
dangerous to public health are carried on in the open
street, and all the waste products and refuse are thrown
down there. In the Mussulman quarter, which is that
of the butchers and tanners, this refuse is thrown into
a ditch of stagnant water in the immediate neighbour-
hood. Think, then, of all the stenches and causes of
infection which are collected together in these Chinese
towns where there is no system of drainage, nor of
sewerage. And not a single town, in all the centuries,
has made any effort to improve these pestilential con-
ditions in the dwelling-place of its inhabitants. The
people, moreover, are quite astonished »?hen you call
attention to the dangerous omission not only of hygiene
but even of care for their comfort; they do not under-
stand you. They and their ancestors have lived for

51

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

thousands of years in this way, and can there possibly
exist in other towns among the Western barbarians any
better conditions of life? How much less opposition
the Chinaman would give to improvement, if he were
not convinced that all is for the best in the greatest if
not the only empire in the world!

Besides the commercial and industrial city, there
remains for me to describe a certain quarter of ancient
splendour, now sadly fallen away, which occupies
nearly the centre of Chengtufu, - the Imperial Town.
There remains of it only some ruins without beauty or
character, and possessing no architectural features. The
Imperial buildings have long disappeared, and not a
vestige of them regiains, but there are still the walls of
the enceinte, even a triple wall. The outermost of these
is of imposing dimensions; it constitutes a square, the
sides of which measure more than 800 yards. Its
height is about 25 feet, and its breadth 10 feet, and we
have often taken our walk upon it. At the east and at
the west it is pierced by two monumental portals, the
vaults of which are not less in height than 1 6 feet, and
in depth 28 to 30 feet. The third wall, of much more
modest dimensions, encloses the Kong luen, or Exam-
ination Palace, a dreary pile built of ruined fragments
of masonry braced together by hundreds, so confined,
so unfit for habitation that every year numerous candi-
dates die there from sunstroke.

A watercourse surrounds the Imperial Town; it is
called the Yu-H6, the Precious River. In former days
it communicated with the river in the Tartar city, but
at the present time all connection between the two

58

THE CHINESE CITY

waters has ceased to exist, doubtless long ago. The
‘Precious River,’ moreover, no longer flows; its bed is
nothing but a broad ditch into whose black and stink-
ing waves tanners, leather-workers and knackers throw
at will all the refuse of their unclean industries. If you
ask the people living in the quarter why they do not
re-establish communications between the two rivers,
they do not even reply, thinking it an idle question.
What would be the good of that? Besides, it is not their
business 1

I have now described the Tartar Camp, the com-
mercial city and the Imperial Town, without having
made any mention of the public buildings one might
expect to see. The reason is that except for the pagodas
there are no buildings to which such a designation
could be applied. The Viceregal Palace is not only
small in size but has no architectural character. It is a
series of buildings, just like sheds, made of mud, brick
and wood. The smooth surface of the walls, bare of
any decorative design, is in bad repair, and seems to be
crumbling away in places; the roofs alone have the
elegant and artistic note which they always possess in
China, with their lines of festoons, and their sharply
pointed corners, coquettishly tilted. Inside the building
one may search in vain for carved pillars in either wood
or stone, or marble facings, or painted walls or ceilings.
As for wainscoting, or rare and precious furniture,
there is none. The viceregal residence is a collection
of tumbledown old buildings, not only unfit to shelter
a potentate commanding 40 millions of people, but
insufficient to content the least exacting of Europeans,

59

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

so miserable is it, so denuded of every kind of comfort.
And outside there is nothing but bare courtyards with-
out a flower-bed or a bit of gras?, still less a statue or an
ornamental vase. The yamens of the Chief Justice or
High Treasurer are no better equipped.

The University, or Ta-Hio-Tang, is installed in
quite modern premises made of wood and clay. In the
few buildings made of brick the walls are only one brick
thick, making the rooms very hot in summer and very
cold in winter.

But none of these buildings, as I have just said, pos-
sess anything of an architectural character; the temples
alone deserve our attention. There are a great number
in the town, but many of them are abandoned. The
old trees which surround them are often their most
beautiful ornament. The most remarkable of these
temples is situated near P^-men in the midst of a superb
park; it is really a monastery, where more than 200
monks celebrate night and day the glory of Buddha.

I do not speak of the theatres, which do not exist as
public buildings. Here they amount to little more than
a stage in some private house, or are found in the streets
like booths in a fair.

60

CHAPTER V

THE CHINESE STREET

I HAVE completed the description of Chengtufu town,
but in order to give a clearer idea of the life of its
inhabitants, I must add some additional details and
show what the streets are like, and what takes place in
them. They differ very much from ours; the first thing
that strikes one is the absence of wheeled vehicles of
any kind. There are no tramways, no omnibuses, no
common conveyances for carrying passengers, no lor-
ries nor carts for carrying goods. There is indeed the
wheelbarrow, but that cannot be used everywhere
because of the state of the roads, and it moves very
slowly; therefore the actual means of transport is man,
whether he carries a palanquin or a bamboo with the
loads slung at each end.

One does from time to time see coolies with huge
baskets on their backs filled with blocks of salt or
pewter or copper, but these are rarer than carriers with
the bamboo across their shoulders.

Wheelbarrows are of two kinds, one used for carry-
ing passengers, and the other for goods. That for pas-
sengers has a little bamboo seat in front in which the
fare sits, his legs either hanging down or stretched out
along the two side pieces which enclose the solid
wooden wheels. In Chengtufu the wheelbarrow is
small, and intended for one person. In other parts of
China this vehicle can accommodate as many as eight
passengers, in fours placed back to back on each side
of a plank which divides the vehicle lengthways into

6i F

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

two. How often I have seen these poor coolies round
about* Shanghai, with straps round their necks, their
half-naked bodies bathed in sweat; they have their legs
wide apart the better to balance themselves; they drag
their load with little jerky steps, their movement con-
stantly checked and limited by the enormous oscillating
weight hanging to the strap, which tends continually
to force the muscles to the position necessary for equili-
brium. This kind of wheelbarrow is used in Szechwan
only for goods; it can be seen in the streets of Cheng-
tufu, loaded with bundles of leaf tobacco, with rice
or other cereals, sometimes with two great freestones,
one on each side - with salt, coal, coke, or even two
fat pigs. It was very distressing to me to meet these
poor fellows pushing on painfully like resigned oxen,
unable to shake off the yoke which cut their bruised
flesh to the quick, pushing with enormous effort their
heavy ill-balanced vehicles, over a track encumbered
with every kind of obstacle, and the most irregular
surface in the world.

What hindrances these brave wheelbarrow coolies
have to contend with! How many times are they
stopped with a jerk because their wheel has caught in
the rut it has dug in the pavements or the ground for
years 1 Sometimes a wheelbarrow upsets in the middle
of the street, in the black sticky mud of the rainy season.
Others following close are hustled by the chair porters
and the bamboo carriers till there is a block of wheel-
barrows much more difficult to disentangle than a block
of traffic in our streets. If the sacks of rice have fallen,
or the blocks of salt, or the large coal, or the blocks of

62

THE CHINESE STREET

freestone, all very heavy for their weak muscles, what
time is lost before these puny ill-fed men, slow in
movement, can put things in order again. The scene
sometimes becomes highly comical when on market
day a herd of pigs rush about the narrow obstructed
streets. I often had to travel in my chair over a very
bad road, a terror to wheelbarrows, and there I have
many a time seen couples of pigs carefully tied together,
lying on their backs in the mud with their legs in the
air, fighting and struggling, and uttering ferocious
grunts. If a convoy of mules, cows or packhorses made
their appearance at that moment the scene became
indescribable. Much tribulation these poor wheel-
barrow coolies pass through, and for a wage just suffi-
cient to keep them from dying of hunger. I have doc-
tored hundreds of these worthy fellows, whose necks and
shoulders were atrociously blistered by the strap, which
was not always a real strap but merely a piece of rope, -
of more modest price. The sore, neglected in the begin-
ning, dirty, infected by the palm-leaf bedding on which
they stretch themselves in their miserable night’s lodg-
ing, rapidly develops into an enormous abscess, spread-
ing over half the back. They did not come to me until
the last moment, after considerable suffering which they
made light of, seeming indifferent to their physical pain.
These poor beasts of burden with bleeding skins, who
feel nothing, who are laden mercilessly, drag their heavy
load until they drop, for their pittance is not paid until
the end of the journey, and is earned only at that price.
They are apparently incapable of revolt against their
bitter lot, suffered by their predecessors for centuries.

63

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

These coolies came to me, but as soon as they were
operated on and relieved, they hastened to return to the
wheelbarrow proprietor to harness themselves afresh
to their only means of gaining their bread. They have
interested me so much that I have missed the sight of a
mandarin’s procession passing by, made up of heralds
out at elbows, rigged out in strange red or green tinsels,
wearing on their heads conical felt hats with narrow
brims, recalling some of our mediaeval head-dresses.
Some of the heralds, bearing tablets on which were
inscribed the titles of the mandarin, were bawling out
the great virtues, the wisdom, the prudence of their
master, his knowledge of the law and government, his
kindness, his love for the poor and the humble. As his
palanquin went forward, his satellites were crying every
moment, ‘Give place, give place for the great man who
passes,’ and the wheelbarrow coolies were rushing to
one side, were pulling out of the way in haste their
heavy and cumbrous vehicle until the cortege had
passed amidst the shouts of the heralds and the shrill
and ear-splitting notes of the kettledrums.

A gayer procession is the one which accompanies
the flower-decked chair of the bride, carved and painted
in vivid and startling colours. A whole suite of porters
is engaged to carry the presents, which are spread out
to view on gaily painted trays, furnished with high
wooden handles through which the bamboo slides.
The nmnber of the trays naturally varies with the
importance of the presents; these are for the most part
very insignificant, consisting chiefly of meats, sweet-
meats and other dainties.

64

THE CHINESE STREET

There exists another kind of palanquin, not that of
a bride and less beflowered, but none the less to be
remarked for its refined elegance, its silk or satin lining,
the spotless brilliant blue of its outer covering, and the
very marked curve of its shafts, raising it high above
the ground. It holds, you would think, what we call
une belle petite^ a yellow ‘gay lady’ ; undeceive yourself,
it is a person of the opposite sex, with clean-shaven face
pale under its paint, and eyebrows cut to represent a
butterfly’s wing. He is dressed in a robe of fine silk,
pale blue in colour; he is nonchalantly flirting a fan, and
at the moment when you, a European, pass, he stops up
his nose with a dirty handkerchief so that he may not
smell the sickening odour of the white man. He will
be annoyed at even passing your chair; we have the
evil eye, it seems, and all sorts of calamities may
emanate from us. This mignon has a strong belief in
evil omen and fears it, as superstitious as a fille dejoie.
Under his painted mask of white lead, with his eye-
brows a copy of feminine fashion of bedizenment, with
the equivocal gleam of his gloomy eye, lifeless, so
different from what lights up natural passion however
venal, he is the repulsive image of the worst sexual
folly. He has passed in his beautiful chair, leaving to
us vague odours of questionable perfumes brought
from Shanghai and before that from Hamburg, abom-
inably adulterated, but well suited to such charms.

Coolies, mandarins, brides and mignons, these are
naturally not the sole occupants of the street. Besides
the business man who goes calmly to his oflice, never
in a hurry as in our towns, there are the representatives

65

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

of diverse professions passing constantly along. I will
cite a few. There is first the most curious of all, the
perambulating restaurant keeper, who carries stove and
fuel, kitchen utensils and victuals all on the two ends of
a bamboo. He goes jogging along, stops at the first
call, stirs up his fire, and soon serves smoking rice and
savoury beans and cheese, morsels of meat and vege-
tables, or a cup of boiling tea. The meal served he
starts off again at a trot, seeming to carry quite gaily his
cumbrous burden.

Another peripatetic gentleman is the hairdresser.
He also carries all his apparatus, and shaves heads or
else beards, but particularly heads, according to Chinese
custom, and without soap, a product he is not ac-
quainted with. He has the business also of cleaning
his customer’s ears with little sticks and scrapers, which
he pushes as far as the eardrum, conscientiously scrap-
ing the passage. These same sticks and scrapers, never
wiped nor washed, pass from one customer’s ears to
another without either operator or client having the
least suspicion that any harm may result. The eyes too
have their turn to be cleaned; he passes under the eye-
lids certain little instruments; he then massages them.
All these manipulations are done with the greatest
dexterity and the greatest uncleanliness in the world.

There is also a whole category of petty hawkers of
materials and foodstuffs, who go from door to door with
their wares. They must not be compared with our
pedlars, who are more or less specialized; the Chinese
hawkers will have every variety of commodity in the
smallest imaginable quantity.

66

THE CHINESE STREET

An interesting type in the street is the man who lets
out pipes; he has two or three always stuffed with
tobacco ready for the passing customer. Should a coolie
stop his wheelbarrow or lay down his loads to give him-
self the treat of a smoke, the proprietor hands him the
pipe, lights it, and, the tobacco consumed in a few rapid
pulls, receives a sap^que in payment. This tiny fee
corresponds to the insignificant quantity of tobacco
consumed, about half a cigarette, so small is the bowl
and so loosely filled. The pipe then passes to another
mouth, passes to hundreds of mouths in the course of
a day, and you notice that to neither customer nor pro-
prietor will it ever occur to wipe off even with his
sleeve the saliva left by the last customer. The letter-
out of pipes, when the price of the tobacco is allowed
for, will make a daily profit of 8o to lOO sapfeques,
about 9 or lo sous. His livelihood is thus assured.
Numerous in Chengtufu are the representatives of this
strange profession, because they supply a real need; the
multitude of coolies and artisans who will thus spend
two or three sap^ques on their smoke in the course of
the day have not the means to buy at any given moment
the smallest quantity of tobacco sold at a shop.

Among these breadwinners I must not leave out the
collector of dogs’ excrement, who goes from street to
street, diligently gathering up the desired manure.
This profession is as lucrative as that of the pipe pro-
prietor.

There is again the grass-seller, who goes outside the
walls to gather the plants and grasses which grow round
the tombs in the common cemetery, where the very

67

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

poor are buried. Elsewhere the grass is the property of
others, and is carefully reserved. Every day a man or
woman brought for our horses a little load of all sorts
of plants mixed with the real grass that the horses liked;
we found there wormwood, pyrethrum, and fumitory
added to make bulk and complete the load. Although
my groom regularly refused these unwholesome plants
the gleaner continued to bring them just the same, in
larger or smaller quantities, hoping always that they
would not be noticed. The best brought by these poor
people came sometimes from our own garden; it was
offered us at the usual price. We shut our eyes to this
little act of plunder, but the groom discovered it, and
his silence must have been bought at a price. For the
load of grass the gleaner got generally 40 sap^ques -
about 4 sous - and it was his only means of livelihood.
Though during the rains he could gather during the
day enough for two loads, for about six months of the
year he had great difficulty in completing one.

But the most striking object in the streets of Cheng-
tufu, which inevitably attracts your attention here, as in
every Chinese town, is the kao houa tze, the beggar.
He forms a vast brotherhood, from which women are
excluded, a brotherhood with its laws and its chiefs and
its members, bound by the strictest discipline. Begging
is an organized profession; it is part of the machinery
of social life in the empire. This institution has usually
at its head no common man but one of vigorous temper
and the great energy required to make a success of his
strange business, and to keep in the path of duty his
depraved army, whose supervision is an extremely diffi-

68

THE CHINESE STREET

cult task. For it may well happen that the results of
their work, the provisions or clothing collected, may
not be sent to the central store but be illicitly sold, or
exchanged for sweetmeats or pipes of opium, to the
loss of the association. As a fact, the total of alms
collected each day is always of some value, and certainly
never to be despised.

The beggar rarely asks in vain; people give to him
regularly, they dare not do otherwise; they fear him,
and above all fear his chief, all-powerful because he is
rich and able to take action against them either by
robbery or incendiarism, a risk which few can bring
themselves to incur. The sight must be seen to be
believed - these beggars in long strings or in gangs
walking the streets; in our country, such a spectacle
would rouse disgust and immediate protests from the
whole population. Society would insist on the removal
of such a scandal, and would demand that measures
should be devised such as would insure the necessaries
of life to this class of cripples and incapables without
such a useless and degrading exhibition. But in China
the situation is acquiesced in, if not approved of by the
people; it is a sort of mass levy, enforced by playing
upon their fears and superstitions. In fact, among
these beggars there naturally exist numerous degener-
ates, victims of hysteria, whose feats of second sight and
hypnotism contribute powerfully to perpetuate a reign
based on terror over a people which in spite of its
scepticism is a prey to a thousand apprehensions, such
as scientific knowledge alone would dissipate. These
degraded creatures who wander the streets are rarely

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

infirm; hatred of work and absence of the sense of duty
to society has led them into this most shameful of pro-
fessions. They pass along, emaciated, like living skele-
tons or phantoms, their horrible nakedness disguised
only by pimply itch or the stigmas of their vices; for
they have every one of these, and the most repulsive
of all. Oh, what a subject for a painter of the Dance of
Death and diabolical passion ! What huddling in their
nocturnal refuges, those cesspools of pestilence, where
so much degradation meets in hideous confusion ! On
mild days they pass through the streets hardly hiding
their sex under a shred of filthy linen; in the winter
they drag themselves shivering along, tightening round
their shoulders the piece of cotton which this very night
may be their shroud. Under European influence, they
have more or less disappeared from the Treaty Ports,
or at least are not seen in crowds.

May I be permitted, in conclusion, to tell of the
agents of a lucrative industry, which can be seen in this
form only in China.? Every day towards the middle of
the afternoon, one can see at the cross-roads, and at
the street corners near the gates, a large number of
wooden buckets filled with a mass of semi-liquid, semi-
solid stuff, which I shall designate only by its Chinese
name - ta jen?- At a signal from the chief of the
gang, these particular coolies, whose sense of smell
nothing offends, scatter in all directions, carrying to the
farmers and market gardeners the true stimulant of all
productions. The precious contents of these wooden
buckets, not being always watertight, often leak out to
1 Human ordure.

70

THE CHINESE STREET

the great annoyance of the coolies, annoyance caused
not as might be imagined by the pollution of the street
but by the continuous diminution of the amount trans-
ported. These fellows do not even take the trouble to
cover their vile-smelling utensils; they do not think of
it; they do not realize the desirability. Never has a
prefect been more abused and insulted than a certain
mandarin of Tonkin, who had held office there some
years, because at the instigation of Europeans he gave
orders that the porters of ta fen must in future put
covers on their buckets. There was a revolution, a
general hue and cry; the corporation sent its members
to the Yamen to protest, and these quickly passed from
words to action, by smearing the walls of the prefect’s
residence with their special product.

I often noticed that when the porters stopped on
their way to take refreshment at a restaurant or tea
house, no one took any notice of the buckets they
deposited at the door, and no one protested against their
being left there. If by a clumsy movement some of the
contents were splashed close to a customer, he did not
even shift his position. In a country where the doctor’s
sign proclaims that he can heal and bring to life again,
contagion is evidently not to be feared; moreover, our
hygienic precepts and rules astound the people. China
is also the country where the chemists every evening
cause to be collected all remains of drugs and medicinal
plants sold during the day, bray them all together in a
mortar and make pills of them - pills which are bought
by the poor because they are cheap.

In describing the passers-by I have spoken only of

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

the human beings, leaving animals unmentioned. As I
have said that no wheeled vehicle except the wheel-
barrow exists in the town, one will doubtless think that
horses and other equine species are rarely to be seen.
Some, however, there are, pack animals on their way
to the mountain regions. Oxen are much the most
numerous; they encamp in the streets as if they were
in the open country. Pigs also wander about in some
quarters, quarrelling with dogs over the filth in the
street.

You perceive that this Chinese city is a kindly place
where men and beasts live side by side. And it is a
quiet city, this capital of Szechwan. In the streets there
are no painful scenes, no bloody quarrels; scuffles and
screams occasionally, but never accompanied by blows
- fights, but never with violent consequences. To copy
European usage, a viceroy three years ago created a
police force of a hundred officers for the whole town,
but their post is almost a sinecure ; they often have to
arrest thieves, it is true, but an assassin hardly ever. In
the course of a whole year, I did not hear of a single
crime of violence. Though there are apaches, ruffians,
here as everywhere, they do not use knives, and the
bourgeois who defends his property need have no fear
of brutal treatment. Anyone who walks the streets at
night in Chengtufu has nothing to fear; he does not
run the risk of the Parisian who has lost his way in the
suburbs. From the standpoint of general tranquillity,
the Chinese town can set an example to European cities,
where crimes of violence take place every day.

In his pleasures and his amusements, the Chinaman

72

THE CHINESE STREET

of Chengtufu shows the same calm and serenity; even
the children are rarely boisterous and noisy. In the
streets on the big fSte days, such as New Year’s Day,
for instance, you notice none of that silly or wild excite-
ment so often seen in our towns and villages. We were
astounded at the peacefulness of the old city. On the
shop-windows and on the house-doors gaily coloured
papers were pasted; streamers on which were written
greetings and wishes for good fortune hung from the
roofs; the people in the streets were smiling at each
other, congratulating each other, but there was no
shouting nor noisy demonstrations.

This people is only excited when the Government
wants to increase the burdens which already weigh too
heavily on them ; they revolt then, not without reason,
as their poverty is great. Their character, however, for
non-resistance is such that the wildest schemes of
agitators have some chance of success. In 1900 we
witnessed the extraordinary occurrence which has since
become historic. Twelve Boxers, men and women,
entered Chengtufu - and took it; one may say so, since
the whole population of 350,000, Viceroy and authori-
ties included, shut themselves up in their houses, and
dared not come out. These twelve fanatics remained
masters of the town for several hours, indeed until the
French Consul, M. Bons d’Anty, persuaded a little
military mandarin that it was easy to get rid of the
rascals. The soldiers having been assured that if they
shot the bullets would not come back against them, and
that no charm any longer guaranteed the Boxers from
injury, speedily made an end of them, and the capital

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

was reconquered. The Viceroy, surrounded by his chief
mandarins, and protected by two pieces of cannon fixed
to the doors of the palace, thought that the city was
invaded by thousands of dangerous and invulnerable
fanatics; having no intelligence officers, he knew
nothing of what was taking place. The intervention of
our Consul enlightened him, and restored order.

74

CHAPTER VI

CHINESE DRESS

C HINESE dress, like the Chinese house, has not
varied for thousands of years. Fashion is an
unknown word; the most advanced young mandarin
and the most elegant grande dame dress themselves
like the contemporaries of Confucius, and their cos-
tume differs from that of the artisan only by the rich-
ness of the material. You must go into the inter-
national towns or to some rare cities of the interior
to discover European influence.^

The form of clothing does not vary with the seasons;
the poor content themselves with heaping the whole of
their wardrobe on their backs in winter, and gradually
removing the whole series of garments, which they
have not taken off for months, as the temperature
becomes milder. The well-to-do classes wear in winter
furs or wadded clothes. This is because that precious
material, wool, does not exist in China; or rather that
no use is made of it. One can understand that the
Chinaman, in the days when he was camping on the
alluvial banks of the Hoang-ho or the Wai, would be
unlikely to weave the wool of sheep, which must have
been very scarce in that region, if indeed there were any
there at all. But as soon as he set about driving back
the barbarians who crowded him on all sides, and
extended his territory towards the North, the South,

^ At the time of the revolution of 191 1, it was thought that European
costume would come to be universally adopted, but since then reaction
has been severe.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

and the immense West, he must have come in contact
with numbers of pastoral peoples, whose coarse cloth-
ing might have suggested to him, a skilful weaver, the
idea of profiting by fine fleeces, light and warm in
texture, and always easy to procure from domesticated
animals. But nothing of the kind happened; he has
limited himself to clothing of silk, cotton or ramie.

Wool would have been all the more serviceable to
him, because silk is a luxury product never accessible
to the masses, and it does not dispense with the need
for other clothing, except in hot weather. Moreover,
it is of fragile texture, not really practicable for the
stronger sex, who however make more use of it than
the women. It is indeed eminently suitable for the
rich class of a people to whom all movement is abhor-
rent, who imprison themselves in an uncomfortable
chair when obliged to go from place to place, and in
short tend to become physically mummified. For some
years, however, the young in the schools have, under
American influence, been adopting physical culture.

Cotton is the textile most commonly used; dyed
blue, it serves in Szechwan to clothe those of the popu-
lation who cannot afford silk, that is to say, nine-tenths.

Ramie is much less common, but summer garments are
made of it by the middle classes and some of the poor.

Chinese costume always takes the form of a long
robe; the Chinaman thinks nothing so seemly and so
elegant; he has a profound contempt for our waist-
coats and short jackets. As fashion does not exist for
him, he cannot conceive why our tailor has pared here
and cut out there to build up an ensemble that seems

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CHINESE DRESS

to him the last word in eccentricity. The basques of
our tail-coats are an insoluble problem to him; he is
led to believe quite sincerely that it is in a spirit of
economy that we have cut away stuff where normally
it ought to be. But what is most grotesque in his eyes
is the white linen dinner jacket worn by elegant
Europeans of Hong-Kong, Shanghai, and Tien-Tsin
in the summer evenings. This garment, with the back
cut in the shape of a heart and the front barely reach-
ing the loins, is the climax of folly and stinginess.
We become respectable and civilized people only in
winter, when we put on our cloaks and overcoats.
You would be greatly admired in a town of the interior
if you walked about the streets in a very full and
conspicuously coloured dressing-gown in large checks;
your smartest lounge suit or morning coat would on
the contrary be noticed only with supreme disdain.

When I went up the Yang-Tse, I used to run about
the hills in the simplest linen or cloth suit that I pos-
sessed, and even in the evening I did not encumber
myself with an overcoat. But the day before we arrived
at Tonquin, the weather having grown much colder, I
put on a kind of Inverness cloak, not at all elegant
according to our ideas. The crew, nevertheless, were
full of admiration for this mantle, and got the inter-
preter to ask me why I had not put on such a hand-
some garment at the beginning of the journey.

The conceited Chinaman imagines that we do not
know silk, and that barbarians could not make such a
material. When he is told that the precious stuff is as
common in France as in China, but that men leave it

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

for women to wear, he cannot understand; he cannot
believe that in any country silk would be appropriated
almost exclusively by the sex he considers inferior.

Besides the robe, the Chinaman wears a kind of
breeches, or rather pants, made of silk or cotton accord-
ing to his means. These breeches, very broad at their
bottoms, are fastened to the ankles by laces ; he thinks our
trousers very unpractical, falling as they do loosely over
the shoes, letting in cold and dust. But though our trou-
sers are not admired, our socks on the contrary, especially
when of startling colour, are the object of serious envy;
they are indeed very superior to theirs, which are not
woven but generally cut out of a piece of white cotton.
Moreover, they are a luxury not accessible to the masses.

As regards underlinen, the Chinaman is very badly
supplied; the shirt is not in the Celestial Empire the
universal garment possessed by the poorest in France,
the absence of which means the extreme of destitution.
In our country the meanest tramp possesses as many
shirts as a high Chinese mandarin, and he changes
them more frequently. The Chinaman does not feel
the same need for clean linen as does the European.
He will cheerfully wear the same shirt for a month, or
even two, and its dirt-begrimed appearance does not
move him to change it. The sensation of physical and
moral repugnance from uncleanliness in underlinen is
not felt by him in any degree. The rare shirts of the
rich are not washed until summer. In all the regions
of China which have a winter, and that is nearly every-
where, the people do not imdress at all after the cold
weather has set in; at Chengtufu winter lasts six

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CHINESE DRESS

months. The reason is that the inhabitant of the most
comfortable house has no means of heating his rooms;
he possesses neither stove nor fireplace. He is afraid
of getting cold, and so keeps on his shirt and other
garments when he goes to bed; only the outer robe
is taken off before he stretches himself on a sheetless
bed. Sheets are another unknown luxury in the great
empire; the Emperor himself possessed only a single
pair. We Europeans are sybarites indeed, and our
affectation of uncalled-for cleanliness makes the China-
man shrug his shoulders. And our extravagant laundry
work — those collars and cuffs of immaculate white-
ness which we throw away at the end of two or three
days as soon as there seems to be a shade over their
purity - are we not ridiculous and foolishly spend-
thrift? The shirt itself is changed almost as often.
Such habits are really incomprehensible to him.

Another subject of wonder is that in winter the
European wears, under his cloak or overcoat, clean and
well-kept clothes. Why? The Chinaman’s outer gar-
ment alone is presentable; the others are always dirty.
In spite of this he never considers himself as wanting
in decency or cleanliness, as long as the robe which
every one can see is of beautiful stuff, unspotted and
well cared for. Evil-smelling rags under a silk robe,
that is too often China - an admirable fafade masking
horrible squalor, the result of inertia and pride.

I said just now that the mandarin did possess a few
shirts - the mandarin and the rich merchant - but the
rest of the population have none. The poorest of our
peasants and labourers have at least two complete

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

suits of clothes; it is not so in China. Most of the
population carry on their backs all they possess. They
have no change of clothing; they do not replace a gar-
ment until it falls to pieces. It is thus impossible to
nurse and cure persons who suffer from the itch, whose
number is legion. Where is a clean garment to be had
to replace what ought to be disinfected? The problem
is insoluble, unless the patient agrees to come into
hospital, which happens rarely. The itch is so familiar
to him that he ends by enduring it with perfect serenity.

One peculiarity of Chinese clothing which strikes
the European is the absence of pockets; he has not a
single one. The things we usually put in our pockets
are carried in the girdle by coolies and workmen; the
other classes put them in little bags which hang on to
their robes. Their sleeves folded back at the wrist or
the low boots which they wear when elegantly dressed
serve to hold many objects, particularly letters and
papers. Letters are so insecure that nothing is more
frequent than their loss on the road; any European
who has entrusted letters to coolies or soldiers has much
to say on that subject.

I have just alluded to the coat-sleeves turned back
to form pockets; the unreasonable length of these
sleeves makes one wonder, one cannot conceive of the
reason of such a fashion, or rather such an anomaly.
Every class of society wears long sleeves, even the
peasants and workmen, and God knows the time they
lose out of a day’s work in continually rolling them
back. There is nothing elegant in these huge sleeves,
ta sieou tze - they are so enormous that nothing is seen

8o

CHINESE DRESS

of the arm. It is lost in a great cylinder of stuff, which
hangs down to the feet. The wearer has to throw up
his arm and shake it vigorously before he can get the
lower part of his sleeve to slide back, and uncover the
hand. A European would never submit to such annoy-
ance, such slavery. Queer people who by preference
or by fashion can thus chain their arms, as if the very idea
of being ready for action and effort were repugnant to
them! Long sleeves, you are the sleeves of decadents!

As to certain accessories of the toilette such as ties,
gloves and handkerchiefs, the Chinaman either does
not know them, or prefers not to use them, with the
exception of the handkerchief, which, however, he
employs in a different manner from ourselves. He uses
it to tie up anything he wants to take special care of -
such as a watch, for instance. It is a very dirty piece
of cotton, but nevertheless he will never consent to sully
it with his nasal mucus. That mucus goes to the ground,
always, the high mandarin’s as well as the coolie’s,
manipulated, as one may guess, with the thumb.

Women’s costume is somewhat different from that
of men. Their robe is much shorter, rather like a tunic
reaching to the knees, for it would not be seemly for
the weaker sex to have the same privileges of elegance
as the stronger; the superiority of the one over the other
must be shown even in the dress. The mandarin’s
wife, however, is authorized to wear a pleated skirt,
in full ceremonial dress.

The tunic is of silk or cotton according to the
means of the wearer; the costume is completed by
trousers of silk or cotton usually embroidered, save

8i

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

in the lower classes; they are generally very wide.
The women of the poor who cannot s^ord enough
stuff to make them sufficiently ample wear them
fitting closely, or replace them with a kind of puttee
wound round the leg and carried high up under the
tunic. Nothing is so ungainly than the shape of
these poor Chinese women, whose spindle shanks are
thus exposed in their entirety, like the legs of cari-
catures where the head and bust are of exaggerated
size. The mutilation of their feet forces them to
walk in a peculiar way, like a man who has lost both
legs propelling himself along by two sticks. It fol-
lows that the muscles at the back of the leg, and
particularly the muscles of the calf, become completely
atrophied. There is even atrophy of the whole foot, as a
result of the want of regular exercise; its atrocious de-
formity prevents real walking for any length of time,
as the foot has ceased to be a sufficiently sustaining base.

The Manchu lady is differently dressed from the
Chinese; she wears the long robe, like the man. Was
it a caprice of the conqueror to decide that his wife
should wear the costume of the male of the vanquished
people.^ I do not know, but it has always been the
privilege of the Manchu woman to wear the long robe.

As for articles of toilet, the Chinaman has no
ordinary towels such as we use, nor our useful Turkish
towels; he admires them much, but they are an article
of luxury within reach of the rich alone. Our towels
are so much sought after that the boy from Shanghai
^ or even the coolie will save up money to buy one.
Very small cheap ones are specially manufactured for

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CHINESE DRESS

such customers. At the present time, the Chinaman
uses for his toilet a cotton rag, a clout you might call
it, never clean, and which lasts an indefinite time
without being washed.

There remains the question of footgear; here again
the Chinaman’s work is inferior to that of the European.
His shoes and boots have neither the finish nor the
elegance nor the solidity of ours. At Chengtufu the
well-to-do walk about in felt or stuff shoes, so un-
practical that the least rain completely soaks the foot,
especially in roads where water lies in stagnant pools
and mud is always abundant. These shoes are shaped
like ordinary slippers and are never high in the leg,
and are without laces or buttons. Leather is employed
only for heavy boots for soldiers, grooms, hawkers,
and such people who cannot afford a chair. The
luxury boot is of black satin, with very thick felt soles ;
it is of course not intended for walking; its wearers
never leave the house except in a palanquin.

Lately they have begun to manufacture laced boots
after the European model, but very clumsy. The
actual footgear used by those whose profession obliges
them to walk along the abominable Chinese roads is
the tsao hai, or straw sandal, which is never slippery,
and which protects the sole of the foot. To conclude,
though a Chinaman’s footwear is bad and unhygienic,
it costs him almost as much as that of a European, so
much better shod, for if he cannot affo'^d a chair and
must go on foot, his shoes or sandals, unfit for much
wear, have to be frequently replaced.

There is little to say about the head-dress; it con-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

sists in winter and indeed for the greater part of the
year of a small silk skull-cap; when larger at the top,
this becomes also the official hat of the mandarin. It
is hot and not very practical, but it is better than
our horrible bowlers or our ridiculous top-hats. The
official straw hat is shaped like a very broad cone; it is
very light.^ The summer head-dress of the coolie or
peasant in Szechwan is the It teou, an enormous hat of
plaited bamboo, or more commonly still the straw hat
with broad side pieces, so broad that they have to be
fixed under the chin with string. There is indeed one
variety which the countryman puts on only when he
goes to town ; it is so extraordinarily large that he has
to hold the brim with both hands. This variety is often
very finely plaited. Perhaps it is not known that every
year tons of ribbon straw plaited here are sent to France
to make our summer hats. In Szechwan and elsewhere
there are also real felt hats, but these are worn only by
Chinese Mussulmans.

In short, though China is very proud of her silks,
she forgets that the mass of her inhabitants are reduced
to wearing nothing better than common calico; she
is ignorant that for practical purposes nothing can take
the place of wool, which would be useful throughout
the empire not only for outer garments but for under-
wear. The Chinaman, however, is discovering this,
and if his purse were better filled our flannel and
woven woollen goods would be at once adopted. I
have shown, too, how badly his wardrobe is furnished
with the linen which we consider indispensable; no
^ These various official hats have to-day disappeared almost everywhere,

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CHINESE DRESS

sheets, two or three towels and as many shirts, and this
meagre outfit applies only to a small part of the
population. No stockings, no socks except a piece of
cotton shaped to the foot, worn in winter and summer,
and that again even a luxury for the well-to-do; no
practical shoes in good supple leather, for his leather
is stiff, owing to the defects of his tanning processes.
Such is the position of the Chinaman with regard to
clothing and its accessories. But I must add that
European footwear and European straws and felts
are in great demand among the elegant.

I saw once in a great town on the opening day of the
examinations a whole procession of high mandarins,
who were to be shut up for a fortnight; behind each
palanquin was fixed a minute trunk, smaller than a
valise, on which was fastened the Number 2 official
hat. Number i being on their heads; and above this
hat was spread out the towel ; that was all. How far we
are in Europe from this simple life of patriarchal days!

I was talking about all these things one day with a
Parisian of the class called cultured; I enumerated to
him all the things wanting to the well-to-do Chinese.
He at once loudly affirmed the great inferiority of
the yellow race to the white, and then abruptly asked
me, ‘At any rate, they have motor-cars.?’ On my reply
in the negative, he exclaimed, ‘But then they are
nothing but savages!’ Wise philosophers, and refined
Greek literati^ proud patricians of ancient Rome, you
who never possessed the amazing wardrobe or motor-car
of the civilized man of present-day Europe, you cannot
indeed have been anything but barbarians, savages!

85

CHAPTER VII

CHINESE FOOD

I N Europe it is a common habit to ridicule the
Chinaman’s peculiar taste in food. Mention is made
of stags’ sinews, swallows’ nests, sharks’ fins, the
intestines of fish, holothuries, black gelatinous pud-
dings at which we shudder, dogs' flesh, rats’ flesh, and
other culinary oddities; but none of these dishes have
their place in his everyday diet; they are special dishes,
rarely served save at great feasts, except the dog and
rat, which may be called the delicacy of the poor.
Moreover, what is the swallow’s nest but a collection
of seaweeds out of which, or something like it, our
confectioners regularly make the fruit jellies which we
enjoy? And the shark’s fins and the fish’s intestines?
Do we not frequently eat tripe, which if you like is
cooked d la mode de Caen^ but is none the less the
entrails of an animal? As for the shark fins, nearly
every day we crunch up the cartilage of fish, and the
gristle of a pig’s ear.

I grant you that the stag sinews are a peculiar dish,
but what of it? The Chinaman eats it because he
attributes to it virtues that will prolong a certain
phase in his existence - that of procreation; therefore
he keeps to it. In a word, the Chinaman lives like us
on meat and vegetables, with naturally certain prefer-
ences which I will point out by the way.

First of all, he divides his food into two categories,
which do not correspond exactly to our division of foods
into three or four forms of nutriment, any more than

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CHINESE FOOD

to the classification made by our cordons bleus\ these
are fat or lean, but vegetables like garlic, onions and
leeks are included in the fat category. Tche houen is to
eat fat foods - meat, fish, eggs, and the vegetables I
have mentioned. These foods constitute the houen tsai\
they are further subdivided into two other classes -
ta houen, or pork, and siao houen, which includes any
meat other than pork, fish, eggs, and the vegetables
already cited.

Pork is the food preferred above all others by the
Chinaman. When he says ‘tche jou,' T am eating
meat,’ he always means pork - the unique, the only
meat for him. Beef, mutton, goat’s flesh or game leave
him cold; he eats them only because they are cheaper,
when he cannot afford pork. He has such a passion
for pork, the fat parts particularly, that nothing on
earth seems more delicious to him. When the poor
wretched starveling coolies are discussing among them-
selves the number and quality of the material enjoy-
ments of the Houang ti, the Son of Heaven, they never
fail to cite the extraordinary happiness of being always
able to buy every day for his dinner 100,000 lb. of
pork fat. Their eyes light up at the thought of such a
possibility, and their mouths fall open as if to catch
some drippings of this delicious fat, melted down, in
Chinese fashion, to be swallowed greedily.

Whenever I went into the streets I would meet or
see at the eating-house doors men whose faces indi-
cated a very marked state of congestion - red faces,
bloodshot eyes, and the veins standing out from the
temples. This congestion was the result of overeating,

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

a very frequent phenomenon in China, where excess
whenever it is possible is the rule. The phrase
tchang lien tche te fei hong' — ‘He ate until he was red in
the face,’ is often heard in the streets of Chengtufu.
After wedding feasts and other festivities, death from
indigestion is by no means uncommon. The pittance
of the Chinaman is so often reduced to the extreme
minimum necessary to keep him alive that whenever
he has a chance, and especially when his victuals will
cost him nothing, he eats voraciously. What he de-
vours chiefly is pork fat — one, two, or sometimes
three great bowls full, finishing the meal with a little
rice to clear off the sticky coating covering his lips
and teeth. This mass of fat, incomparably indigestible,
at once causes intense congestion of the viscera, which
is shown in the face by the signs which I have just
described ; the man seems as if he were on the point
of bursting. Nowhere, so much as in China, have I
observed such plainly marked symptoms of overeating.

Nothing is more painful to the Chinaman than
abstention from fat; nothing makes a patient more
miserable than the prescription of ki ieou (no fat) : he is
always much impressed, puts on a discomfited air, and
does not fail to consider himself as seriously ill.
Nothing gives him so much joy as the raising of the
veto, and if he has enough cash that day he will head
straight for an attack of indigestion.

Though, in China, pork fat and various vegetable
oils, such as castor oil, arachis oil, sesame oil, are used
in the preparation of food, the same cannot be said
of that animal fat so much appreciated by us, and

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which we call ‘butter.’ It is not known; there has been
no attempt to make it. The barbarous tribes of West
Szechwan and also the Thibetans are the only peoples
who make great use of it. Milk also is not appreciated;
the Chinaman has a great disdain for it, and never
drinks it. An old man only will consent to take some
when much enfeebled and when other remedies have
failed, but even then the only milk he will take is
human milk; they get him a wet-nurse.

It is almost the same with eggs as with milk; they
are not an article of consumption frequently used, and
they are only eaten rotten - black in appearance, and
smelling horribly. In the Szechwan Alps, the native,
unlike the Chinaman, feeds freely on new-laid eggs;
during a journey that we made in that country we
found eggs everywhere on the route set out for sale
in the smallest eating-houses.

I propose to try now to describe as exactly as pos-
sible the customary menu of a grand dinner at Cheng-
tufu. First of all, the food is not dished up in our
fashion. Roast meats either by themselves or sur-
rounded with vegetables are characteristic of our
culinary art; this is not the case in China; no flesh is
roasted except sucking-pig, and very excellent it is.^
The meat is always served cut up into very small bits,
and carefully mixed together; on the same dish you
find slices of duck, ham, chicken, roast pork, etc.
Each guest fishes at will in the heap with his chop-
sticks, chooses, and carries to his mouth. Ham,
especially if it comes from Yminan, is very good;

^ Ducks also are fairly often roasted.

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duck and chicken or rather capon are always tasty
and basted with great care. Besides these tiny morsels,
they keep bringing to you plates of hot bouillon in
which are floating thin slices of the same meats or
mushrooms or sugared seaweeds. The Chinese are
very fond of these soups; they swallow large quantities,
not with their chopsticks as some one in France once
asked me, but drinking from the plate.

There are always vegetables - cabbage, peas, beans,
spinach, bamboo shoots or pea tendrils, according to
the season; they are cooked in water, and not an
atom of dripping or oil enters into the cooking. It is
very rarely that they are sufficiently cooked, the cus-
tom being to take them off the fire as soon as they are
beginning to get soft; the European feels as if he is
eating raw vegetables. To help them down, it is
customary to add to them an oil sauce, tsiang icou,
often perfumed, a sore trial for a queasy stomach.
Fish is eaten with the same preparation, or another
salt variety. An excellent dish, quite inoffensive to
Europeans, is made of prawns mixed with rice cooked
in fat; simply seasoned, it has an agreeable taste.
Its only fault is often an excess of grease, of which the
Chinaman is so greedy. The host, moreover, would
feel that he was doing his guests an injury if any dishes
requiring the addition of fat were not prepared with
as much fat as could possibly be added.

A choice dessert dish is a kind of almond milk very
savoury and digestible; the best fruit is a delicious
little cherry floating in the pure juice of the sugar-cane.

During the whole of the repast, the Chinaman is

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nibbling apricot almonds or melon seeds; he cannot
do without them. It might be thought that they
stimulate his appetite.

One great act of courtesy which your host or your
neighbour does not fail to pay to you is to fish in the
dish of mixed bits of meat and to pass you his catch.
Before seizing the slice destined for you he has cleaned
his chopsticks with a rapid lick of the tongue, and
after this homage to hygiene and cleanliness he effects
his capture, which you are bound to accept under pain
of gross discourtesy. You can thus receive from both
sides at once these marks of delicate attention, particu-
larly when he has taken note of the kind of meat you
seem to prfer.

But what is the ordinary daily fare of the Chinaman?
The rich eat every day a little pork, chicken or duck,
but mainly soups and vegetables. With these dishes,
instead of the bread which we eat in the course of a
meal, they take kan fan (dry rice, that is rice stewed
in a marmite) as distinguished from hsi fan (boiled
rice, which is the food of the poor and the sick).
The generality of the comfortable classes consume very
little meat; their principal food is rice and vegetables,
with a little dish of pork. Macaroni and vermicelli
are frequently eaten.

There is a large consumption of fish.

The poorer classes feed on rice when they can; if
they are obliged to go without it, they then eat cakes
made of wheat, maize or millet, and macaroni and
vermicelli, but chiefly vegetables, and plenty of vege-
tables, because of their cheapness; meat is usually

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out of their reach. But happily for the craftsmen,
that most interesting class of workers to whom China
owes what still remains of physical and moral health,
there exists for their sustenance the famous bean
cheese, called teou fou, which makes a very nutritious
food, and is largely consumed even by the rich. It
is the Chinaman’s real nitrogenous food, that which
gives him the necessary strength to accomplish the
arduous toil - the labour of a beast of burden -
which his present economic organization imposes on
him. Many people who have travelled through the
Far East, and even stayed there, express profound
admiration for the Chinese or Japanese coolie, who
they say performs feats of physical endurance without
eating any meat, and having nothing to sustain him
but bowls of rice and slices of salted vegetable. I will
not discuss here the question of endurance in the
yellow race - an endurance, moreover, that has been
much exaggerated - but I must point out what is
forgotten, that the coolie and the artisan, in these
countries, finds in bean cheese a nutritive product par
excellence, the necessary proteid for the restoration of
his tissues.

Prominent among vegetables of constant con-
sumption in Szechwan are gourds, pumpkins and
cucumbers; these are a very cheap food, the food of
the masses.

In China, as indeed in some countries of Europe,
vegetables are not eaten in the fresh state only, but
are preserved in brine, when they are called han tsai.
Under this head are included numerous varieties of

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CHINESE FOOD

vegetables, whose leaves are exposed to the air on
hurdles or on bamboos, to attain complete desiccation.
At the end of autumn, in the neighbourhood of all
the towns and villages, you will see enormous spaces
where these vegetables are suspended. The large-
leaved cabbage without a heart is the principal constit-
uent of han tsai. As soon as they are dry, the leaves
are put into a brine tub, and thus preserved for future
consumption. Han tsai is an important article of
commerce, and goes wherever market-gardening is
little developed.

When the Chinaman sits down to table, he is not
surrounded with the paraphernalia which is customary
with us; he has his chopsticks and sometimes a little
earthenware spoon with a short handle, but that is all.
No fork, never a knife; his meat is cut up beforehand,
as I said, into very small pieces, and I have never
seen him divide a fruit - apple or pear, for instance —
with a cutting instrument. Like the meat, these fruits
are served cut up beforehand into thin slices. He does
not eat cheese made of milk, and here again a knife
would be useless to him.

As regards silver plate, or even simpler articles,
sufficiently costly nevertheless, they never appear on
the table of the high mandarin, still less on the tables
of other classes of society. The bowls, tureens or other
receptacles for the table used by the Chinese are most
simple, and generally of earthenware or common
porcelain; the dinner services we use are not manu-
factured by him. He takes his tea in a plain bowl in
which the leaf is infused under any odd cover, but our

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

beautiful teapots in silver and silver-gilt belong to
Europeans alone.

Nor for his cooking has he the improved apparatus
which is at our disposal: his battery of marmites,
casseroles, gridirons, Dutch ovens, etc., is of the most
rudimentary kind, and does not include a quarter of
the utensils which we employ. The kitchen ranges and
improved ovens which we possess have not yet been
invented by him, nor has he found out how to produce
and regulate the gas which serves us for both lighting
and heating. His utensils are confined to some bowls
and little plates, rather like our saucers. He has no
glass-ware, this being known to him only by import-
ation from Europe. He works in crystal, and cuts
snuff-boxes and lenses for his spectacles out of it,
but he does not make from it any of the delicate little
objects we see on our tables.

As for linen, tablecloths and napkins, which the
majority of the white race use, and which, especially
the napkin, they regard as indispensable, the Chinaman
has never availed himself of them, and does not see
the necessity. At the end of the meal he passes over
his mouth and then over his face a cotton rag dipped
in warm water, and this done, has observed the rules
of meticulous cleanliness.

When one has lived some time in China, one is
astounded to find how artificial are certain essentials
of our present-day civilization; nevertheless, it is
settled that this is progress, and that our well-being is
sensibly increased thereby; so much indeed does it
increase that a day will arrive when we shall have

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CHINESE FOOD

become like the rois fainSants of history. We shall
even come to dread the effort which has brought about
these new conditions of existence; and, failing then
in the necessary energy to maintain them intact,
we shall lie down in decadence, our vitality all used
up, crying in our turn for ‘bread and games’ - not
the circus, however; that would be too brutal for our
sickly sentimentality, far removed from the true senti-
ment of humanitarianism ; no, but the theatre - of
dancing-dolls.

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CHAPTER VIII

ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

FOOD

T here is little to say on the provision industry;

the Chinaman has made the most of the resources
at his disposal. What he is ignorant of is the means of
preserving food in any other way than by salting it or
by drying it in the open air. Our modern methods of
preservation in a vacuum after destroying the germs of
fermentation are unknown to him. Nor has he learnt
what a precious nutritive reserve he has in milk, be-
cause of the butter and cheese it yields.

CLOTHING INDUSTRY

The Chinaman has never made any great inventive
effort to adorn his own person, or the persons of his
wife and daughters. For centuries, silk and cotton
stuffs, methods of weaving, and colours, have remained
the same. The mode of weaving, moreover, is most
primitive, and produces only very imperfect material,
full of defects - the woof irregular, being sometimes
loose, sometimes tight. The process of spinning is
besides very defective, on account of the inadequate
appliances and the mediocre skill of the craftsman.
Silk or cotton thread of a given length varies extremely
in calibre, sometimes coarse, sometimes fine, strewn
with knots and joinings. The finest robes of man-
darins or great ladies, even those worn by the houang-ti
(Emperor), are very faulty masterpieces, which would

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be refused by our great costumiers. What perfection
Lyons obtains in weaving, and what marvellous tis-
sues are produced there, compared to similar silk
materials manufactured in China! In the same way,
our cotton materials, which, with their varied colours,
their original and ever-changing designs, give value
and elegant charm to the commonest of stulFs - our
cottons, I say, leave far behind a similar product in
Chinese industry. This product is indeed so strikingly
inferior that it can no longer stand against the com-
petition of imported cotton cloths coming from Europe
or America, even in the estimation of the Chinese
purchaser. And yet the cotton plant can be cultivated
without great expense in most of the provinces of
China; in the hands of an industrious and energetic
people, the cotton manufactured might have been so
good and so cheap that a piece of foreign stuff could
never have succeeded in reaching the interior. At the
present day, the exact contrary is the case ; the import-
ation is so considerable that the culture of the cotton
plant is abandoned more and more, and will shortly
disappear, even in a region so far removed from the
coast as Szechwan. The successful struggle would
only have been possible for the Chinaman if he had
abandoned his primitive looms, and transformed his
antiquated processes of dyeing and printing - in a
word, if he had borrowed our own methods.

I have just alluded to the dyeing processes employed
in the empire; like spinning and weaving, they remain
very far from perfection. It is very rarely that two
vats prepared to produce the same shade have the

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same degree of concentration; more than that, the
operation of steeping is never rigorously maintained
for the same length of time for similar stuffs; finally,
the mass of tissue plunged in the vat is too often
irregularly distributed and compressed so that the
degree of impregnation varies in places, and conse-
quently the depth of colour.

Silk, cotton and ma pou (ramie or grass cloth) are
the only textiles used by the Chinaman, and these in
the way I have described. The fine tissues of cambric
which Europe produces have never been manufactured
by him; moreover, the small amount of linen which
he wears is always coarse, unless he lives on the coast
and purchases the delicate stuffs either imported or
manufactured on the spot in European mills. In the
same way, the lace, so astonishing in variety and
beauty, which Europe has fabricated for so many
centuries, is unknown to the Chinaman; no wife or
daughter of his has ever conceived the idea of invent-
ing this work, in which an infinity of combinations has
created marvels of intricacy and beauty. They make
up for the loss by their embroidery, which is every-
where made, in public workshops as well as in the
interior of yamens and country houses. Europeans
agree in praising the various styles in use; the tints are
pleasing to the eye, and the combinations of colours
form a general harmony. At Chengtufu there are to
be found embroideries for portiires and curtains
of the most delicate work, masterpieces of skill and
patience.

I have spoken of the different materials used by the

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Chinese. I have now a word to say on the way these
stuffs are made up; it is simplicity itself. The Chinese
tailor has never to worry himself over a new cut, or to
combine his stuff with a view to a ‘creation’ of elegance
and good taste; such an effort is never required of him.
His ancestors cut out a pattern thousands of years
ago; if it had been made of imperishable paper, which
no gnawing insect could invade, it might still at the
present day serve for the descendants of those who, at
that far-away epoch, ordered robes for themselves.
And nothing could be more primitive than this simple
pattern ; - the flowing vesture worn by the ancestors
of all the human races of whom history has bequeathed
the sayings and doings; the linen robe of the Hebrew,
the Roman toga, the Greek peplum, - with variations,
it may be conceded, - but all conceived according to
the same scheme; in short, the most simple form
which immediately recommended itself to the earliest
ages as a complete cover for nakedness. Our suits,
made of waistcoats, jackets or frock-coats, — ugly
enough certainly, - our cloaks, and even more the
toilettes of our wives and daughters, are complicated
achievements made with ingenuity and dexterity,
compared to the easy arrangement of a Chinese cos-
tume, whether it be designed for one sex or the other.

As to lingerie, there is no comparison to establish,
since this so-important accessory to dress practically
does not exist in China. All those fra’l and delicate
tissues of refined luxury, or those other garments for
commoner use, more simple and practical, - all the
combinations decreed by elegance to deck and heighten

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visible and invisible charms, - in short, all those little
marvels which science, art and good taste have united
to create, - are still removed from the imagination
of the Chinaman. And be sure that if his resources
allowed him such a debauch of luxury, his wife would
be the last to enjoy those delicate articles of the toilette;
he would first of all attire himself in them.

In the large shops of our towns, a very important
department is entitled ‘gloves, feathers and hats.’
There too is elegance and art and luxury and God
knows how many combinations and inventions and
refinements to gratify our idols with an ever-changing
plumage. In China it is quite otherwise: the glove is
still unknown, except in the ports; the feather is never
used, not even to stuff a common mattress or pillow
as in our rural districts; the only exception is the pea-
cock’s feather which adorns the official hat of the
mandarin. Moreover, the article ‘Feather’ is entered
in the export columns of the Chinese Customs to the
figure of 500 to 600 tons; this product is bought by
Europe and the United States.

There remains the hat: I have described the hat
worn by men, but what is the fashion of feminine
headgear? The Chinese woman wears neither hat nor
cap, such as we see in our country; the countrywoman,
however, can protect her head from the sun by a large
straw hat, but the most usual custom in all classes is
to wear what are called cheou che or head ornaments.
The expression so little implies the idea of a head-
dress that it is used in a much more general sense to
describe all sorts of ornaments such as hairpins, rings

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ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

and bracelets. For everyday use the women of the
people or the middle classes wear on their heads when
they go out a bandeau of silk or cotton stuff, orna-
mented with artificial flowers, trinkets or tinsel. This
bandeau is put on like a crown with the convex point
in front. The women of the higher classes adorn their
hair with pins, flowers, and a thousand other precious
things; all these adornments are for indoors, as out-
door life with its visits to Paquin or the Galeries
Lafayette of the town, the holidays at the seaside or
in the mountains, the race weeks and other dissipations,
all the joys and distractions of the open air, are cruelly
forbidden to the poor Chinese lady, except for some
emancipated women (or rather women torn up by the
roots), who can be found in international cities like
Shanghai.

FURNITURE

Every one knows the artistic cabinets, tables and
little pieces of furniture in the grand style made by the
Chinese, but these are rareties or curiosities, to be
found only in the houses of the mandarin or rich
merchant. Furniture in Europe includes a number of
articles whose good taste and artistic quality make them
quite equal to anything in Chinese art, and even often
surpass it. The upholsterer, moreover, at Szechwan
as well as the rest of the Empire, has very little to do :
his great work consists in upholstering the palanquins
de luxe.

Apart from embroidered stuffs, there is nothing to
beautify the homes of the most fortunate classes.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Patterned carpets and hangings and the whole category
of curtains, where so much variety and charming fancy
are mingled, are never seen either in town or country
houses. The art of tapestry with its admirable creations
is also unknown here. Inside the public buildings,
temples and private mansions, you have none of these
mural paintings to contemplate, these immortal mas-
terpieces born of the artistic genius of another race.
The only paintings you will notice are rude productions
of primitive talent, recalling our shop signs, such as
our house painters would daub: they invariably
represent the same dragon or the same men chen (gods
of the gate), all apparently traced from the same
model.

To supply the place of mural paintings, there are
no pictures to adorn the galleries of public or private
buildings. In Szechwan, and in nearly all China, the
subjects chosen by the artist are painted on long strips
of silk, cotton or paper, which only distantly recall
our canvases. The most precious of these paintings,
those which have a real artistic quality, are never hung
on the walls; their fortunate possessor rolls them up
carefully, and hides them at the bottom of a drawer,
showing them only to his relatives and friends. Every
one is aware that the Chinaman is ignorant of painting
in oils; if occasionally the artists of Canton have
exercised this art in imitation of Europeans, their work
cannot be considered but as short-lived attempts,
confined to one locality.

As regards everyday furniture, the Chinaman is
better supplied; his tables and cupboards are very

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ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

satisfactory, if less practical than ours and less finished.
The toilet table is very simple, and you will never
see in his house the elaborately fitted washing basin
which modern invention has supplied to us. No
architect has ever dreamt of such an astonishing de-
vice. As to his cupboards, their number is not to be
compared with ours, the reason being that he has
infinitely fewer articles to store, less clothing and linen.
The Chinese cupboard has one particularly inter-
esting arrangement; this is a large cavity in the lower
part which is designed to keep the bundles of sap^ques
(small coins). China possesses a coin a thousand of
which are required to make three francs. When the
mistress of a house has but a hundred francs in this
currency, it is easy to imagine that she requires a very
spacious drawer to hold it.

Those who practise carpentry or cabinet-making
have a very serious fault: when making panels or the
backs of a piece of furniture, they simply lay the
planks side by side, so that they do not form a fitted
whole; in consequence, for valuable furniture very
broad pieces of wood are required; the ordinary type
would be worthless in our estimation, on account of the
chinks between each plank.

The Chinese bed is very simple; occasionally very
handsome carved examples are to be seen, but generally
it resembles our most common form of bedstead. The
canopy is the most remarkable part, ornamented in
rich houses with beautiful embroideries. As for the
bedding, properly so called, mattress and covers,
there is little of it; the mattress is represented by a

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

thin layer of wadding between two pieces of cotton,
as I have already pointed out, or again it is made of
thick plaits of straw joined to form a rectangle some
inches thick; it can even amount to no more than a
simple mat of rushes, in summer as in winter, or more
simple still, made of sheaths of tsong tsien, traehy-
carpus excelsa. The bedclothes are as meagre as the
mattress. Needless to say, there is no spring mattress,
no eiderdown, no bolster, no soft feather pillow, no
woollen blanket. The iron bedstead has never been
made; the Chinaman would be unable to construct
it in the present state of his ancient metal industry.

The chair, which is to us an indispensable article of
furniture, seems less so to the Chinaman; he prefers
to lie at full length when he can, and he is quite
content to squat on his haunches for long together,
without the least fatigue. He has not therefore felt
the need of perfecting the chair, or of fabricating its
luxurious progeny - arm-chairs, sofas, couches. His
chair is simple, massive, very large, and entirely of
wood; rattan chairs are made only on the coast.
These wooden chairs are, however, gracefully turned,
and sometimes delicately carved. But they have
always two disadvantages; the seat being of wood is too
hard, and therefore disagreeable to an over-civilized
part of our bodies; the rich, however, always place
cushions upon it. Then the back is always strictly at
right angles to the seat and never has a slant to allow
for the natural attitude of the trunk in repose. The
European thus quickly tires of the Chinese chair.

Having in the course of centuries never discovered

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ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

the art of glass-making, the Chinaman has no mirrors
in which to admire himself, except those brought by
us; the looking-glass industry was unknown to him
until the arrival of the first Dutch and Portuguese
traders. Up to the present time, he has not begun
to practise it himself; formerly, he used a mirror of
polished bronze.

THE BUILDING INDUSTRY

I need not recapitulate what I have already said
when I was describing the house, the mansion and
the public building; I will only add a few words to
allow of estimating the professional value of the
various building craftsmen. As regards the carpenter,
I will expand this discussion so as to describe him in
his different functions.

The bricklayer is equal to ours ; he is, however, less
attentive, and it often happens that the verticality of a
wall leaves much to be desired. He agrees with the
architect that the foundations are always too deep; he
reduces them in consequence to such a shallow depth
that buildings frequently collapse. This accident often
happens to the piles of a bridge when exposed to the
shock of waters at the season of the summer floods.
The walls of towns also crumble away in places quite
often. I witnessed this at Chengtufu on two different
occasions; the foundations being of very little depth,
the enormous mass of bricks and mud wall standing
8 or 9 yards high above the soil were not provided
with a sufficient base, and when the earth round the
bottoms of the walls became softened by the action of

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

the heavy rains, and could no longer serve to prop
them up, they fell away.

The Chinaman has not always built in this negligent
manner; there are still standing some architectural
works of very great antiquity in as good preservation
as is permitted by the effects of exposure, and in spite
of the Chinaman’s evil habit of never repairing his
buildings.

In describing furniture, I have said enough to
indicate what the Chinese joiner can do; he puts his
work together badly, and uses his plane carelessly.
The cabinet-maker, on the other hand, is often a real
artist.

The carpenter is a good workman, and his assemb-
ling of beams and joists leaves nothing to be desired.
When he specializes and becomes the builder of boats,
his task is more difficult, for the Chinese boatman is
not guilty of an excess of prudence and foresight.
Therefore the carpenter must use all his skill to give
the maximum of solidity to a bark which will be sub-
jected to the hardest tests, on rivers abounding in
rapids, where an obstacle instead of being avoided
seems rather to be sought out, and where the ordinary
conditions of navigation include the necessity of
towing with the line along the banks and round the
rocky points. The result of his efforts is on the
whole satisfactory; I was convinced of that during our
ascent of the Yang-Tse; I was able to recognize this
in the case of a large number of junks, and our own in
particular.

The Chinese carpenter has never attained to the

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ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

dignity of a coach-builder; the only vehicle he has
been called on to construct is the wheelbarrow : neither
his ingenuity nor his knowledge have been sufficient
for a more complicated piece of work. In the North,
however, he can build a very primitive cart.

After the carpenter, I shall place the cooper, who
is of the same family. He confines himself to making
buckets and tubs, never having been able to develop
his art so far as to plan and fashion our simple hogs-
head; the double bottom has been his stumbling-block.
Moreover, all the liquids of agricultural and industrial
production are kept in jars or other earthenware and
porcelain receptacles.

The blacksmith and the locksmith bear a very
modest part in Chinese construction; the former makes
only some coarse nails much inferior to the wooden
pegs or pins generally in use. The kinds manufactured
for furniture are of a very primitive make and extremely
fragile; copper is used instead of iron. Door hinges
are never made; the doors turn on pivots of wood. As
to what we call door-plates, nothing in the art of
Chinese smithery can approach them.

The locksmith is on the same level as his younger
brother; his skill in his craft amounts to little com-
pared with that of the European workman; his locks,
or rather his lock, which is a padlock, cannot be named
in the same breath as our simple lock, not to mention
the astonishing combinations which guard the doors
of our safes. The astounding thing is that for centuries
and centuries, the Chinaman has always made the
same lock, and has never invented another kind.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Ornamental ironwork is not applied to any portion
of the Chinese house, and is never met with else-
where; even the elegant lanterns which are to be seen
hanging inside private houses or temples are mounted
on a wooden framework.

In a word, when one considers the role of the crafts-
man in all branches of ironwork, one is forced to
recognize that during the course of ages the Chinaman
has made no progress, and has therefore been able to
derive only mediocre advantage from this most valu-
able of products; he is quite unable to manufacture a
respectable nail; the shovels or tongs to be found in
the market, and other small implements in everyday
use, are of the clumsiest kind. He is familiar with
steel, but he can put it only to the most modest use, -
that is to say, employ it in the manufacture of certain
cutting instruments.

The great variety of ingenious tools which we possess
have still to be created by the Chinaman. His are so
primitive that it needs an extraordinary skill to get
out of them as much as he does, especially when the
work is that of the chaser or carver. Moreover, would
anyone believe that he has never found out how to
manufacture a screw ?

The gunsmith knows how to manufacture the iron
heads of lances, arrows and halberds, and also a
clumsy musket that however has been made only since
Europeans came into the country. I doubt very much
whether it had any earlier origin, in spite of the know-
ledge of gunpowder, which is said to be a Chinese
invention. In any case, it has never been developed,

io8

ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

and in recent times only imitations of our rifles have
been made. The first bronze cannons to be used in
war were cast under the direction of the Jesuits.
The wooden or bamboo cannons of the preceding
centuries were intended simply for use in public
rejoicings; their efficiency doubtless did not allow of
their being weapons of war.

It can be truly said that the activity of the China-
man has never been directed towards gunsmith’s
work.

In short, China’s iron industry remains still in the
same primitive state as when it was first created by her
far-back ancestors.^

In our country, the dwelling, to be complete and
furnished with the usual improvements, requires the
help of a workman whom we call the ‘plumber and
zinc worker’ to fix the gutters and spouts and put up
certain kinds of modern roofing. In China, the plum-
ber’s function is confined to the soldering of kitchen
utensils or some insignificant system of lighting; he
never has to occupy himself with any kind of tubing
or pipe laying, an important branch of industry in our
country. Taps, cocks, ball-valves and such-like are
also unknown to him.

The Chinese roof-maker is in no way inferior to
ours; his tiled roofs are well laid down, and some of
those on the temples and turrets of public buildings are
most elegant. He does not make flat roofs only; he
has a variety made up of parallel rows of tiles alter-

* The great modem foundry at Han Yang was set up by a Luxem-
bourgher, M. Rupert.

109 I

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

nately convex and concave; evidently this plan is most
favourable to drainage. If there were gutters placed
round such a roof the arrangement would be perfect.

The metal-worker or coppersmith of the yellow race,
whether he works in cast-iron, iron, tin or copper, is
far behind his white competitor. He manages copper
and tin, however, better than iron. He makes little use
of zinc.

CLOCKWORK, JEWELLERY, SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS

The first examples of clock-making were introduced
into China by the Dutch ; this art was unknown to the
Chinaman. Moreover, he has never learnt to make
clocks and watches ; he can repair them sometimes, but
that is all.

As for jewellery, the Chinaman, as we know, is an
expert in this art. The gold and silver articles which
are to be found throughout the Empire are finely
chased and of artistic taste; I have, however, never
noticed such a profusion of original designs as to be
found in our country. This people rarely breaks away
from routine, from familiar types and patterns; they
incessantly revert to them.

Gold and silversmith’s work, with rare exceptions,
is not a Chinese art.

As for the scientific instruments required for study
or to meet the needs of industry and commerce, the
Chinaman cannot be said to have invented anything
under this head. He certainly possesses the compass,
but besides this instrument he manufactures nothing for
the purposes of topography, astronomy, meteorology,

no

ARTS AND INDUSTRIES

applied mechanics, etc. He has never even discovered
the thermometer, still less the special instruments
required for demonstration of the physical sciences.
And though in a more prosaic department, he has
inevitably found a means of measuring weight, his
balances are as little precise as they can be, and you
will not find two in any town which indicate the same
weight. The maker of balances for chemists has not
been more successful than he who provides for mer-
chants and money-changers. It is true that the want of
precision in his work has not the same disadvantage as
in Europe, for Chinese pharmacy has not yet reached
the point of concocting extracts or powders. Nothing
has been the cause of more disputes in the Celestial
Empire than the readings of scales, especially when
it is a question of money, which is always weighed,
because there are no coins of fixed value.^

THE LEATHER INDUSTRY

Tanning is an industry still in its infancy. The skins
usually show that they have been badly prepared.
According to the Mission sent from Lyons to China,*
the skilful graduation of lime-steeping tanks is not
known. Often the pieces are not tanned, but only
burnt. In those districts where the nutgall is used,
the skin being carbonized because of the uneven
distribution of the lime, is insufficiently impregnated
with tannin and becomes brittle. Hence one never

^ For some twenty yean, a coinage has been struck, but the real
standard is subject to caution.

* Mission of commercial inquiry sent by Lyons to China.

Ill

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

sees in China that beautiful supple leather which is
ordinarily made in Europe. Shoes naturally suffer
from this; it is the same with saddlery, the workman-
ship of which bears no comparison with our produc-
tions. If you happen to break a strap of your saddle
and you are obliged to replace it with one of untanned
leather, you must constantly renew it for fear of
accident. This leather tears like felt. It is needless to
add that with such raw material, the Chinaman has
never been able to achieve the beautiful applications
of leather to upholstery or to ornament. Neither has
he contrived to use it in bookbinding. Moreover, his
books are not bound, even in cardboard, so that here
is yet another industry, which is sometimes an art, still
undiscovered by him !

I stop short in this enumeration, which would
become too long if I persisted. It was not, however,
without interest thus to exhibit by means of a short
comparative study the true condition of industry in the
oldest Empire in the world. I shall not speak of the
ceramic industry. We know to what a high degree of
perfection the Chinaman has raised it, and what artistic
marvels he has produced. Nor shall I tell what skill,
what delicacy of tones, he shows in working on bronze
and ivory and in wood-carving. At the same time he
has never attained the loftiness of conception and the
powerful mastery of Greek or of modern sculpture.

112

CHAPTER IX

AGRICULTURE

T he Chinaman is not a farmer, he is only a gar-
dener. What we in France call la grande culture
does not exist for him. His knowledge of the different
varieties of soil, their composition, their special pro-
perties, their adaptation to particular crops, is of the
most restricted kind. He uses only one sort of manure
- human ordure - and despises all others. Rotation of
crops, the use of artificial manures to convert sterile
soil into fertile, and other improvements practised by
us, are neglected by him. He will grow the same
cereal on the same soil indefinitely; for instance, he
sows maize year after year in some regions, without
perceiving that the soil is becoming starved, and that
the alternation of another crop would give the land
rest, and thus assure a greater return.

I said just now that the Szechwan peasant is an
excellent gardener; indeed one may admire the thrifti-
ness which makes something out of the least bit of
land; he does not waste a square yard of his field; he
even considers the roads too wide and steals an inch
from time to time; he never digs a ditch, nor puts up
a bank unless absolutely obliged, for that would be
waste of land. But he confines himself to the plains and
the valley bottoms, and their slopes up to a certain
height, that is to say to well-watered plateaus rich in
fertile principles. Where the land is poor, lacking in
humus, and requiring the addition of special manures
-where fertility can only be assured by rotation of

”3

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

crops and methods of improvement adapted to its
needs, - it is left barren, or yields only meagre pro-
duce of little nutritious value. There are thus vast
stretches of land producing little or nothing, and these
spaces are the larger because deforestation, pushed
as far as the destruction of all forest and woodland,
has ruined entire plateaus; no longer held together
by the tree roots, they have been deprived of the last
particle of their humus by the torrential summer rains.

Intensive culture of the same land, without restor-
ing to it by well-chosen and sufficient plant food the
fertilizing principles used up by the crop, has natur-
ally had the result of reducing the yield. The ear of
wheat in particular does not realize its fair promise.
The grain is small and thin, and the Chinese method
of harvesting it before maturity causes a further
shrinkage. The same thing happens with other varie-
ties of cereal, and the result is diminution of weight
and quantity. If the large extent of cultivated land
is taken into consideration, the loss on this head is
considerable.

Fruits are treated in the same fashion; plucked
green, they deteriorate rapidly, and half the crop
gives no profit to the producer.

STOCK-RAISING

Except for the breeding of pigs and farmyard fowls,
it may be said that the Chinese have completely neg-
lected this important branch of agricultural produce.
They certainly keep oxen and buffaloes, but merely
for ploughing; and if there were no Mussulmans in

114

AGRICULTURE

China none but very old or crippled animals would be
slaughtered. In the west of Szechwan and in the
mountainous regions of Koui Chou and of Yunnan,
oxen are bred for the carriage of merchandise; but it
is noticeable that most of the people who carry on this
industry are aborigines, not true Chinese.

At Chengtufu and in the neighbourhood there are
fairly large numbers of cattle, intended for the nour-
ishment of the 30,000 or 40,000 Mussulmans who
live in the town.

The breeding of horses and other equine species is
also on a very small scale; Western China furnishes
the greater part; the North also produces some. There
is no reason why these animals should not be of excel-
lent breeding, if they received the same care as in
Europe, and particularly if more attention were given
to careful selection. But I noticed at Szechwan that
they stuff the horse with bran, straw and grass, but
never give him such nutritious provender as barley
and oats and maize. It is true that the production of
cereals is so diminished by the various causes which I
have just enumerated that nothing is left for animals
when man is barely provided for. But, at any rate,
some pasture-land could have been reserved for them;
the necessity of meadow-land has, however, never been
realized. As for selection, it is practised neither for
the horse nor any other domestic animal. If a China-
man happens to possess a fine beast, it never occurs
to him to pair it with another of equal quality. Con-
siderations of breed, age or health leave him indifferent,
and imlike our French peasant he will never put him-

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

self out to find a good sire. Moreover, he acts in like
manner with regard to his cereals and his seeds gener-
ally; he uses no selection there. Even the Breton,
though apathetic enough, will from time to time bestir
himself to replace some crop whose yield is diminish-
ing; he will make inquiries as to what varieties of
cereals and pulses are thriving in a neighbouring dis-
trict, and will at once try them. Nothing like this is
to be seen in China; no exchange of seed is made
between the different districts or the different pro-
vinces; never is there an experimental field laid out
either by Government or any private person. In every
region they sow the same seed that their remote
ancestors sowed thousands of years ago, and they
will continue to sow it for long years yet.

The animal bred with most interest by the China-
man is the pig; the breeds, however, which I saw in
Szechwan and in other parts of China, leave much to
be desired in development and quality of flesh, if they
are compared with the superb species which selection
and appropriate feeding have given to ourselves. I saw
numerous types at the last Agricultural Exhibition in
Paris, and these enormous animals of handsome ap-
pearance left far behind them the horrible Szechwan
pig, small in girth, with flabby flesh and pendent
belly and sunken often concave spinal column; it is
to be found in an equally wretched condition in
nearly every province.

The other domestic animals of the province are
sheep and goats, but they are rarely found except in
the movmtainous parts of the west. The aborigines

Ii6

AGRICULTURE

breed them in large numbers, particularly the tribes
known under the name of Lolos and Sifan. They use
the wool to make coarse garments like those of the
Thibetans.

The poultry yards possess some fine species of fowl,
but always for the same reason, that is to say, absence
of selection, they are inferior to our breeds in egg
production and weight of flesh.

If we look for the explanation of the scanty develop-
ment of stock-raising in China, particularly in the
West, where conditions were specially favourable, it
is to be found in the incapacity of the Chinaman to
make something out of every kind of land, and to
adapt his various soils to appropriate cultures. It was
his firm belief that he could not live without rice,
even in regions where corn and other cereals abounded.
Therefore of the rich valleys which formed natural
meadows he made rice fields, carrying them even to
the flanks of the wooded hills, which were before the
conquest the grazing grounds of immense herds.
Though he was unable to flatten the summits of these
hills for the cultivation of his favourite cereal, he
nevertheless sowed them to their highest parts with
other crops, first carefully uprooting every single tree.
The consequence of this great blunder in a region
where the rains are extremely violent at certain seasons
was soon apparent. The fertile soil was carried away
bit by bit by the rains, and very meagre was the
harvest on an impoverished soil. Later there was
complete sterility, the positive exhaustion of vast ter-
ritories. And the flocks and herds which would have

117

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

made up for the irisuIEciency of nutritive grains no
longer existed.

At the present time, the fact that the small number
of animals constituting the actual reserve of food, that
the pig whose flesh is so much in demand has the
wretched appearance I have described, is due to the
poverty of the general yield of the soil, overtaxed in
some districts, while in others it has ceased to pro-
duce at all, - at any rate the kind of crop the China-
man aims at obtaining from it, and in response to the
methods which he applies.

FORESTRY

This branch of agricultural cultivation with its
varied needs has always been systematically disdained
by the Chinaman, who has never realized that the
forest is as indispensable as the arable land, and is in
many regions its preserver. Not only has he laid
waste all the wooded parts of his empire, but he has
replanted nothing, or isolated trees only which im-
perious necessity has forced him to preserve, such as
the cypress which is used for shipbuilding, and a
small number of other species employed in building,
and particularly for the fashioning of coffins. Already
pines from Oregon are largely imported. China’s last
forest reserves were exhausted nearly fifty years ago,
and if coal did not abound almost everywhere, one
wonders what might happen. Such want of foresight
is difficult for us to conceive. Even the trees crown-
ing the summits of the hills - last protective shield of
the slopes - have been everywhere cut down.

Ii8

AGRICULTURE

AGRICULTURAL INDUSTRIES

Implements. - Agricultural implements have not
varied in number or quality for centuries. The plough
is the most primitive kind - a simple narrow share,
not furnished with the great convex blade which
increases the amount of earth turned up.

I have not seen a spade of our shape used in China;
long and narrow, the Chinese spade reminds one
rather of a pick.

The teeth of the rake are of wood, not iron.

A harrow with iron teeth is unknown.

For reaping, a small sickle is employed; this imple-
ment has never developed into a scythe. I do not know
whether the scythe exists in any part of China; I have
never met it in the Yang-Tse or in Szechwan, either
in the South or in the North. I should be astonished
to hear it existed anywhere.

Cereals are threshed with a flail, or are trampled
underfoot by the beasts. No kind of threshing machine
is known. The flail is even more primitive than ours ;
it moves only round a single axis, horizontal, and is
therefore less manageable and less efficient.

The farmer’s most highly developed machine is his
winnowing-machine; it recalls that of our great-
grandfathers.

To grind his corn the Chinaman uses mills with
water-wheels, which differ from ours in that the wheel
is never vertical, but horizontal, like a turbine. The
arrangement of the millstones has remained in a primi-
tive form, and with the wheat flour one gets the most

II9

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

wholemeal bread in the world. The bolter lets escape
the richest bran I have ever seen, and the flour is never
white.

Rice is rarely ground; at Chengtufu, rice flour is
occasionally to be bought, but it is rarely used even
for p^teSy being dearer than wheat. Other cereals and
pulses are made into flour, often in mortars with a
vertical grindstone. These are to be had in all dimen-
sions, from very small ones for a single family to those
of great size worked by animals.

WOOD INDUSTRY

The small quantity of wood that remains to be
worked in Szechwan does not require any great equip-
ment; the axe and the handsaw alone are employed.
The mechanical saw is yet to be discovered; even the
hydraulic saw used in the Vosges, so simple, and at
the same time so practical, is unknown. Chengtufu
receives still every year some thousands of feet of
cypress and fir for building junks, but these firs are
never of large size, the masts of their largest vessels
not exceeding the dimensions of a gaff in our sailing-
ships.

DISTILLING

I refer to this industry here because, far from being
practised on a large scale, as in France, it is usually
a small private affair, carried on outside the large
centres of industry. Growers who distil alcohol from
their own products still exist in China.

What is called at Chengtufu a great distillery is only

120

AGRICULTURE

a modest affair. Grains only are distilled - wheat,
little esteemed as a food, rice, maize and sorghum
are mainly used. The product obtained, tsicou^ is often
translated as ‘wine,’ but it is never wine in the sense
we understand, for grapes are not used except for
dessert; it is really what we call ‘spirit.’ Except two
or three varieties which with age become tolerable to
our taste, the Chinese ‘wines’ are abominable gripers,
intoxicating quickly, and producing serious disorders
arising from congestion. The reason is that the still
they employ is the most primitive of primitives, and
that the processes of purification and rectification of
alcohol are totally unknown to them. The spirit thus
retains all the ethers whose noxious effects the study
of organic chemistry has revealed to us.

COMMERCE

The Chinaman has long been a past master in
trade, but he remains a petty dealer. For though he
is extremely clever in directing small affairs, and dis-
plays every imaginable trickery to secure the greatest
possible profit, he is far from having the same capacity
for big business. He is incapable of large enterprises
which call not only for intelligence and a certain
skill but also for continuity -a foresight ever pre-
pared and a vigilance never at fault. The Chinaman is
far from possessing these qualities. As banker and
business man, he is simply a short-term lender, a
usurer speculating on crops or on the earnings of
the small manufacturer or artisan. As for large opera-
tions, the vast speculations of modern finance, they are

I2I

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

beyond his strength. His speculations, which are very
frequent, are in the category of games of chance rather
than of plans fully prepared. Knowledge of the great
economic factors of wealth, and the profound study
of achievements whose possibility arises from political
and social changes, from progress attained, or from
new inventions, rest outside his competence and his
capacity; his brain is not adapted to vast combina-
tions. But once the path has been laid down and the
plan suggested, he becomes a marvellous agent whose
loyalty can be relied on. Even in small daily transac-
tions with the European, the Chinaman is scrupulously
honest; during the discussion of an affair he will
endeavour by every possible means to increase his
personal gain, but once the bargain has been struck
there is no more loyal partner.

In his relations with his own countrymen as cus-
tomers, the petty dealer is far from employing the
same methods. Nowhere more than in China do we
find a mania for adulterating all the products which
can be adulterated. Foodstuffs rarely escape this dis-
honest practice; the expression 'fa choui' very com-
monly employed indicates the simplest operation,
which is the addition of moisture to meat, rice, etc.
Cheating over weight and measure is also universal,
and so much a habit of the dealer that he always has
two balances, one for buying and the other for selling.
These frauds are aided by the want of precision in
these instriunents, furnishing the trader with an ever-
ready excuse. Moreover, weights and measures vary
in the case of heavy goods; a pound is not a pound at

AGRICULTURE

every moment of the day; if normally it is i6 oz., it
can under certain conditions of sale be brought down
to 14 or 1 5 oz. If you buy a basket of coal, for instance,
at a given price, which ought normally to weigh 200
lb., it may well happen that after weighing it you will
find only 175 lb. You point this out to the dealer,
and inquire the price of this new quantity of coal ; he
requires calmly that the price of the basket does not
change, since it always contains 200 lb., only the
pound has no longer the customary number of ounces,
although it always remains a pound. These foolish
explanations would continue indefinitely if you did not
stop them. But whatever you do, whatever precau-
tions you take, you are robbed ninety-nine times out
of a hundred. Not only do the weights and measures
vary in the same locality for most goods, according to
the state of the market or the whim of a guild, but they
vary also in different provinces of the empire. Pro-
vision of a certain weight sent from Chengtufu will
be found underweight 30 miles away, and the dif-
ference would become much more appreciable if the
journey is extended, and the consignment is destined
to cross the boundaries of Szechwan.

To comment on this fact would be idle.

The small Chinese middleman has wiles of which
we are ignorant; one of the best known among grain
merchants, for instance, consists in knowing how to
pour rice, wheat, peas or haricots into the measure
in such a way as to make it hold the least possible
quantity; and if the European buyer plays on the ven-
dor the joke of ordering a servant to stir up the bushel

123

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

in order to make the contents settle, the poor man, very
much put out, declares that he will be ruined.

Where articles of exportation are concerned these
frauds are the more mischievous since the quality and
value of the goods are often considerable; yet decep-
tion is carried on not less frequently, and often so
unskilfully that its author is the first sufferer. Thus in
the early days of the exportation of rhubarb from Szech-
wan to France and England, the sale was so easy and
profitable that the native exporters set themselves to
increase the quantity by adding the maximum mois-
ture to the roots. Naturally they grew mouldy on the
way to the coast, and the shipper at Shanghai refused
them. The losses suffered in this way were necessary
to teach the Szechwan rhubarb dealers a better idea
of commerce.

Musk, a very valuable product, is adulterated with
animal blood or with bean fiour. Wool and feathers
are most frequently mixed with substances of every
kind designed to increase weight. These gross frauds
to a certain extent effect their own cure because of
the difficulty of sale.

The dealers of distant provinces in commercial rela-
tions with Europeans are thus led little by little to
adopt the usages of their compatriots in the open
ports.

124

CHAPTER X

CLASSES OF SOCIETY

T o understand China and its social system, it will
be convenient first to define the mandarin, the
man of the lettered class, and to show him as he has
been for centuries. The revolution of 1911 has cer-
tainly brought about some changes, but they are more
apparent than real. The costume, the insignia, have
been modified, but not the spirit and the inclinations
of the literati., the men in authority. Thus the new
style mandarin wears a military dress-coat, and carries
a sword, but more than ever is his authority absolute
and without appeal. As for the literary man of the old
style, he is replaced by the present-day student, still
more tyrannical, especially since he has been organ-
ized in committees of public safety.

There exists in China an all-powerful aristocracy, the
aristocracy of knowledge; it is called the class of lit-
erati, They alone have the right to place and honour
they alone can aspire to play a part in the Empire, to
wield any influence whatever. As they govern, dis-
pense justice, control, almost without appeal, every
act of the political, social and economic life of the
Chinese people, it is easy to understand what redoubt-
able powers they possess. In a country where there
exists no representation of the popular will, where the
citizen has not yet come to the birth, a.id where the
ignorant feel an almost religious respect for the let-
tered, it would seem almost impossible to make a

^ An exception must be made to-day for the T u-Chun, or military dictator.

125 K

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

breach in this immense authority. The sole source of
weakness in this unique aristocracy lies in the mutual
jealousies of mandarin to mandarin, and the frequent
denunciations before the central power of which each
is the object. Though these denunciations of a gov-
ernor come sometimes from the people or from the
rich merchant class, it is none the less true that they
originate rather in the calumnies and slanders of rivals
greedy to step into their shoes, or to satisfy some per-
sonal spite.

The indisputable and undisputed superiority of the
lettered class is shown, in ordinary life, by numerous
privileges. First of all and before all, in a country
where corporal punishment is always applied, the chen
se (lettered) escapes this humiliation. Even when with-
out official place, and buried in his own village, he is
the great authority, and the old men invested with
administrative powers by the mandarin, dare not make
a decision without first consulting the tou chou jen
(the man who has studied books).

To distinguish himself from the vulgar herd, he had
the right to wear a special head-dress. And, as he who
handles the ‘paint-brush’ cannot have the short
broken nails of the artisan, he wore them very long;
and, when his purse allowed, protected them with
a fine jade cover. The long nail was the characteristic
of supremacy, the symbol of an aristocracy, which was
of all the most firmly established. But where this
man was separated most distinctly from the others,
where he best affirmed his social privilege, was when
he adjudged the beliefs which were not to be those of

126

CLASSES OF SOCIETY

the common people, and created a religion for himself,
the religion of the literati {fou kiao).

When he enters office and becomes a mandarin
{tang kouan) his privileges are naturally augmented
in number and importance. His costume is also clearly
distinguished from that of other classes by special
insignia; there are even certain stuffs and furs which
are his exclusive appanage, which the richest merchant
is not permitted to wear. His head-dress also is never
like other people’s; the cha tai^ the hat invested with
the traditional globule, indicates and establishes the
whole extent of his dignities and his official authority.
He must never mingle with the crowd, to be elbowed
or hustled; he must be carried in a palanquin, which
adds greatly to his prestige. Carried thus throughout
his career above the heads of the herd of which he is
the shepherd, he shows himself to these humble people,
high and majestic, motionless as a bedecked idol,
with his collar of coral ribbon sewn with pearls, with his
red or blue tin tze (globule) and nodding peacock’s
feather; he appears to them such that they see in him
and in his dreaded strength an emanation of the omni-
potence of the houang-tif of him who governs heaven
and earth.

The mandarin’s palanquin is always accompanied
by a more or less numerous escort, according to the
importance of the personage; heralds cry his name, his
titles, his dignities, his virtues, and for those who can
read the whole is inscribed on the tablets, the kao kio
pan, carried by the valets. And the crowd of coolies,
peasants, labourers and shopkeepers must get out of

127

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

the way in order not to impede the passage of the
procession.

The mandarin’s dwelling has also its special archi-
tecture; the nmnber of blocks, of courtyards, and of
gates, is not left to chance, nor does it depend on the
wealth of the owner; the most opulent merchant is not
allowed to have as many gates as he wishes.

These sumptuary traditions tended naturally to
increase the glory of imperial authority everywhere, and
those who were clad in authority thus received greater
honour, amounting to such privileges as appear to us in
contradiction of the principle of the Chinese constitu-
tion, which aims at social equality, and, by the examina-
tion system, opens wide the doors of access to power.

In the exercise of his administrative functions, the
mandarin condescends sometimes to call together the
literati and chief elders of the division, but their views
are purely advisory; the decision remains entirely sub-
ject to his personal concern for justice, or to his simple
caprice, and it is always easy for him to abuse his
authority. The tradesmen’s guilds rarely venture to
revolt; as for th&pe sin, the small people, if it should
happen one day in a district that they depose their
governing official by carrying him away in a chair to
the chief town of the division, the occurrence is so rare
as to be cited merely to be saved from oblivion.

Furnished with his halo of literary knowledge,
which in principle confers on him every kind of
qualification for governing, the mandarin has fixed his
pedestal so high that all the classes which gravitate
around him are almost ashamed of the duties or the

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special work which have fallen to their lot. Manual
work of whatever kind, and however noble in its
achievements, is despised in China. Every indi-
vidual who wields any instrument but the paint-
brush, the Chinaman’s pen, is a being without fame
or influence, and deserves no more attention from his
fellow-countrymen than the beast of burden who drags
his load in order to earn his evening pittance.^ Poets
and philosophers vie with each other to celebrate the
sacred task of the ploughman, - a whole vocabulary
of marvellous epithets is applied to him : the houang-ti
himself will deign every year to leave his sanctuary
to open a furrow, but all these demonstrations intended
to honour the most indispensable of callings have no
other aim than to give it a little ‘face,’ - a false lustre;
never does he receive effectual protection against the
bandits of the countryside, real help translated into
action. Such boons remain in the domain of vague
aspirations, with which the man of the fields has to
feed himself.

The habits of the person so much admired and
envied have had a curious influence upon hygiene
throughout the empire ; no Chinaman will walk unless
absolutely obliged to do so. Whenever he can afford
a chair he will take one; he will never try to save his
money by making use of his legs. Notice also that he
uses a palanquin less from laziness or personal con-

^ One of our learned scientists, if he were carrying on an experiment
in his laboratory, would appear to the Chinaman as a simple labourer,
not a tou cAou jen (a man who studies books). This spirit, however,
tends to be modified, and will alter more and more.

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venience than as a tribute to decorum. He is being
carried through the streets in a similar vehicle to the
mandarin’s; what a satisfaction to his self-respect!
The well-to-do classes act thus so naturally that they
no longer think of the origin, the first cause of this
unwholesome custom. In short, except when it is a
matter of definite obligation, it is degrading to walk.^
I shall long remember the remark which a Chinese
neighbour in Chengtufu made one day, at the moment
when some German officers, passing through the
town, accosted me when I was crossing the road on
horseback. These officers were on foot ; the cool weather
had tempted them to take a walk, and they were
quietly strolling about the town. My neighbour, when
he caught sight of them, looked them over from head
to foot, and then, turning to the members of his
family, said plainly that these people were siao jen
(foreign coolies). Just imagine, they were not in chairs !
And they were wearing khaki, and this in a country
where the frock makes the monk.

The mandarin has no social relations with other
classes: he lives entirely in his clan. He condescends
to no one except his employees, and above all his
servants; to these are allowed such familiarities as
would astonish us, who are nevertheless greater lovers
of equality. They have the right to enter any room,
except the women’s quarters; they do not give them-
selves the trouble of listening at doors, but enter with
ease into the room where their master is discussing

^ This is not the case in the great cities where European influence
has penetrated.

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

his private affairs. If their master at a given moment
should be reading a letter which has just been brought
him, those of the underlings present who can read
handwriting will approach him, and read it over his
shoulder. When the clauses of an official contract are
being debated, as I had occasion to observe at the time
when the organization of our medical school was
being arranged, the servants stand in the hall, very
near the mandarins, and assist in the discussion quite
at their ease, ending by knowing all the decisions
taken. In a word, it is a family party. When the master
goes out to dine, if the porters of the palanquin and
the followers are of opinion that he has had enough
sustenance and diversion, they let him know, and it
is rare for their suggestion to fall on deaf ears.

The servants intervene constantly in the various
acts of the official and private life of the mandarin.
These manners have a patriarchal side which is some-
what astonishing in a country where the privileges and
unlimited powers of a caste are savagely defended.
Is it because such humble subjects of the Emperor
as the servant class are not considered by the lords of
the Celestial Kingdom other than a negligible quan-
tity.? This explanation is the more plausible as in
China our customary morning greeting from subor-
dinate to master does not exist: the salutation of an
inferior cannot honour a great man, and would be con-
sidered a misplaced familiarity. Our European ser-
vant’s daily mark of deference is replaced here by the
great salutation of ko teoUy in which the inferior goes
down on his knees, and bends his head to the ground ;

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this is rarely practised - on New Year’s Day, for
instance, or on the occasion of the birthday of the
head of the house. The coolie, the day labourer, the
artisan who comes to work at your house, will not allow
himself to salute you; he will arrive and depart, without
appearing to notice you.

The ko teou is still the usage when anyone approaches
a mandarin to present a petition or to solicit a favour
from his benevolence. The language will always be
very humble, while the suppliant is prostrating him-
self. 'Siao H kieou ta lao ye' — ‘I, little one, supplicate
the venerable lord.’ Thus the tradesman or farmer
expresses himself, when coming to implore a favour
from a simple sub-prefect.

I will not dwell longer on the mandarin, but say a
few words about the business man and the workman.
At no time can a representative of the trading class,
however rich and well-informed he may be, aspire
to hold any particle of authority: his influence on the
Government and on the course of public business is nil.
Fortune, however, can give him a certain independence
and allow him to exercise a moderating influence,
when he thinks necessary, on the arbitrary man-
darinate. The game, however, is risky if he is not
assured at the start of the co-operation of powerful
auxiliaries, chosen from the privileged class; otherwise
he incurs the danger of losing property and freedom.
In the open ports, the independence of the merchant
is much greater than in the interior, and his financial
security better assured; nevertheless, like a prudent
man, he does not fail, whenever a rapacious ^vern-

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

ment official is casting a covetous eye on his fortune,
to put it in the safe custody of a European bank, or
to carry on his business under an English, French or
American name. In short, the commercial co-oper-
tion of the white race with the yellow has resulted in
giving more freedom to a class which is contributing
powerfully by its activity to the prosperity of its
country. These business dealings have also another
consequence no less important: they tend to bring
together these peoples, so unlike each other; they
come to know each other, and to appreciate each other,
and thus prepare a way for a more intimate and fruit-
ful understanding between races equally great in
civilization and intelligence.

The workman, whether of the countryside or of the
town, is far from having in China the important posi-
tion he is attaining more and more in the countries
of Europe and America.^ If he forms unions or rings,
his influence is hardly at all increased with Govern-
ment; it appears all the feebler because he lacks the
sinews of all war, money, -he so poor, so ill pro-
vided for, in comparison with his white brother.
From time to time he has outbursts of rage, he utters
his lamentations, his cry of distress and his demand
for a less bitter destiny; but his noisy complaints, like
his supplications of earlier days, fall on deaf ears.
The mandarin, who is the arbitrator, is raised too

^ In the great ports, nevertheless. Dr. Sun Yat Sen has created
real syndicates. Trades Unions in imitation of the English Labour
Party. The Bobhevik has found out how to make the most profit out
of them.

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high above him, he can turn a deaf ear to his clamour
with impunity; often at the same time judge and party
to the case, by a secret understanding with the heads
of the business, he cannot hesitate between his own
interest and that of the workmen. Besides, there is
nothing coming in to alleviate the suffering of the
strikers, to make it profitable; there is nothing to
guarantee to-morrow’s rice. Thus the anguish of never
being sure of the daily pittance is perpetuate^ through
the centuries 1 If we do not come to the heip <>” Zhina,
bringing to her our contribution of more vigorous,
more productive effort, because enlighter and
directed by science, this lamentable poverty, far from
diminishing, can only increase, and, with the gradual
growth of the population, can become still more terrible.

A very interesting clan of this great class of manual
workers is that of the coolies or porters. As there are
very few draught animals in China, while, on the other
hand, the state of the roads, except in the North,
prevents the use of any vehicle but the wheelbarrow,
it has been necessary to organize a means of transport
by land (even in a country so well watered river trans-
port does not suffice), and man alone supplies this
need. There are millions in this vast empire, sweating
and panting along the highways and along abomin-
able paths, in ail seasons, dragging at the end of a
bamboo their heavy burden, or carrying on their
shoulders the cumbersome palanquin. They go jog-
ging along under the scorching sun, or in the north
wind, stopping for a moment to take breath, to wipe
the sweat from their brows, or hold their benumbed

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

hands to the fire; they go along, poor beasts of
burden, barely covered with a rag, resigned, without
complaining, to the evening’s halting-place, to the
palliasse swarming with vermin, where, in spite of
everything, their poor ulcerated aching bodies will
sink into heavy sleep.

In Szechwan and elsewhere, the corporation of
porters is divided into wheelbarrow men, palanquin
carriers, kiao fou, bamboo porters, tiao fou^ and porters
who carry loads on their backs, pei tze^ in the Alpine
regions, where this mode of transport, little used in
China, is rendered obligatory by the steep gradients
and inclines which he must traverse every day and at
any moment. The porter carrying his load on his back
is forced to terrible effort in bringing tea and salt
from Szechwan to Ta-Tsien-Ton. You must have met
him on the mountain paths, as I have done many a
time, bent double, his sides heaving, panting for
breath like the bellows of a forge, obliged to rest
every five minutes, digging into the ground and in
time hollowing the rocks with the iron tip of his
kouai tze (a short stick, the handle of which has been re-
placed by a horizontal board to hold the burden in the
moment of rest); you must have been a witness to
his labours to realize how quickly he is worn out-
to understand what a waste of energy there has been
in China for thousands of years, in that China has
not known how to make the most of her soil, and to
find land suitable for breeding beasts of burden. If,
again, these men were highly paid; but no, their
remuneration is scarcely sufficient, it assures them only

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just the daily pittance. Many a time at the evening’s
halting-place, on the road over the Szechwan Alps,
I noticed with what astonishment and envy the porters
stopping at the inn regarded my little fox-terrier, and
the Consul’s dogs, for whom there was brought on
arrival a bowl of rice with meat. There was pro-
found stupefaction; how could anyone serve to dogs
such succulent, desirable food! In China the dog is
not the subject of the same care as in Europe : rather
he is held in contempt; no food is given him, he lives
on garbage and carrion. The Chinaman never throws
to him the leavings of his meal, he gives that to his
pig. - Yes, they did not understand, they who often
had to content themselves with maize cakes, which
they carried stuck on a bamboo above their load!
They understood all the less because in China the
food ration for all classes of the population is most re-
stricted, the rice or the bread is measured out so that
what is meant for the man could never go to the dog.

There have been ascribed to these poor coolies sen-
timents which are rarely to be met with in any country
in a class whose depressing toil does not favour the
hatching of poetical imaginations, which have been
drawn from their kind of work and the particular con-
ditions of their lives. It is the literary man, in want
of a fine phrase, or wishing to idealize a situation, who
creates these ideas, and adorns with them these poor
miserable wretches, whose destiny seems to him in its
naked reality too painful. It is again the philanthropic
philosopher speaking, his whole soul vibrating with
an immense pity in contemplating such a social neces-

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

sity, devouring energies which would have been
utilized better by a more far-seeing race, a race more
desirous to progress. It is pretended then that the
coolie, like the bargeman, loves his work, however
rough it is; that he will not at any price hear a word of
easing his labour by the intervention of the inventive
genius of the European; that if the day’s task is pain-
ful, he has his compensations in life in the open air,
sound sleep, and above all the incomparable happiness
of full and entire freedom. Truly, only those who do
not know the Chinaman, and can have made the most
superficial observation of him, could form such a
judgment on his mentality. On the contrary, in reality
his is the most prosaic race in the world, the least
sensitive to what does not concern his comfort and
his food. Fresh air, sunshine, a free life, sound sleep!
He would laugh in your face if you spoke to him
about such things, and you would in vain attempt to
explain them to him, he would never understand you.
Fresh air, sunshine! But the Chinaman who can
avoid them; and who can afford to stay shut up in his
dark house, gossiping or dozing or smoking his pipe
of tobacco or opium, will never go a step outside to
breathe the pure air, to enjoy the verdure and blossom
of the countryside. Never, do you hear. When he
shows you the beds of his garden, the pond where a
few lotuses vegetate, the artificial rock simulating a
hillock, it is because he considers that this caricature,
this profanation of nature, has put him in unison with
sensitive refined souls of poetic imagination, who
sing of streams and lakes and bamboos. And he is

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enchanted with his counterfeit; and never thinks of
passing through the gates of his town to admire the
real nature of the fields. If he does leave the town it is
to go to a famous pagoda, instal himself in a pavilion
under the smiling eyes of the temple guardians, and
- feast.

To the country itself he is quite indifferent. As for
the poor coolie, who has to run about the high roads,
give him a prison (not his own, which is a hell), but
ours so comfortable, where his bread and rice are sure,
and all these people will be happy to go there and
stay there all their lives ; he attaches no disgrace to this
place as we do.

Sound sleep! Whoever has lived in China cannot
have failed to remark that the inhabitant sleeps little,
that he makes as short as possible the repose of the
night, gossiping and amusing himself for hours, sure
to make up for it in the daytime if he has leisure. He
seems to appreciate much less than we a long period
of slumber, and in the course of my journeys I always
saw that the bargeman and the porter went very wil-
lingly in the evening to the opium den, or if they
could not afford that they would stay in the inn chat-
tering there until an advanced hour of the night instead
of hurrying to bed. As for the supposed hatred of
the mariner against the steam-boat, it does not origin-
ate at all in any love he has for his calling, a love
which is naively described as passionate; but rather in
the firm conviction that this vessel will kill the junk,
and will take away his miserable pittance.

This explanation, if it is not as poetical as the other,

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

has at least the merit of simplicity and of revealing the
actual truth, without periphrases. Suppose that means
were found — and they do exist, easily realizable - to
improve the present state of affairs while providing the
bargemen with a new livelihood, all serious opposition
would at once disappear. It is the same with the por-
ters, who have no special passion for their present
existence, which is indeed slow homicide; if it were
proposed to them to change their work for that of our
road-menders or railroad navvies, they would not hesi-
tate for a moment, still less to work under shelter in
any factory, like their brothers of Shanghai or Hong-
Kong. Instead of seeing only inextricable situations
and opposition impossible to overcome, which one is
careful to explain and justify to oneself by affected
fancies of no value except to put a false lustre on sad
reality, and even impede the search after a sane solu-
tion, — instead of looking at these problems in a poetical
manner, would it not be better to confine oneself to
register simple facts, leaving the interpretation to those
who come into real contact with the Chinese.?

But though the coolie has not the love for his calling
which has been imputed to him, he nevertheless looks
at its multiple miseries with perfect serenity. He is not
a morose nor a melancholy being; rather he is cheer-
ful, - 1 had almost said, contented; I have seen the
sadness of the poor lost creature, weary of falling by
the roadside, only in the face of the ien pei tze^ the
salt porter, across the Szechwan Alps. There indeed
it is calvary, the sorrowful way, indefinitely prolonged,
and when he escapes death by the precipice or the

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freezing cold or the heavy snows of winter, he dies
prematurely from the early wearing out of his over-
taxed organs. But in the valley of the Yang-Tse,
as elsewhere, the coolie is always gay and careless,
enjoying trifles like the child that he is. On the
broken road, lamentable in the rainy season, when he
gets caught in the sticky mud or rolls over into a
puddle, he never thinks of insulting this abominable
way but names it poetically houa houa louy the flowery
roadl

He is also an intolerable chatterer, never stopping
his talk, and making jests on every pretext — and such
jests, very smart jests, sometimes. A group of porters
never gets fagged ; their verve is inexhaustible and also
wearisome for those who understand them and con-
sent to submit to them. The kiao jou (chair porters)
easily turn into little tyrants over those of our race
who do not know the conditions of travel, and cannot
understand some of their actions; they quickly abuse
his ignorance. But when the European is familiar with
people and things and knows what he wants, these
worthy Chinamen become the most easily managed
people in the world, and from tyrants they turn into
submissive slaves. The hauler is unbearable when he
has to drag the junk of some European novice, just
landed in China; but when the European has learned
to know him and direct him, he will submit to any
fancy; he obeys without a murmur even when the
heavy rain is falling and a wind is blowing, in cir-
cumstances which sometimes cause great incon-
venience in descending the Yang-Tse. Even then he

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

goes on at the invitation of the white man, quite sur-
prised at his own pliancy, he the great, civilized,
proud yellow man. And when in spite of rain and
wind he has traversed numerous /w,^ his reflections
are amusing, and above all his astonishment at having
travelled on when the proper thing was to cast anchor
and take shelter in a creek: ‘How droll it is,’ he related.
‘Look how this European has made us go on in all
this wind and heavy rain, and in spite of the world’s
being turned upside down, we got over a great stretch
of the way and without any damage: it’s really funny!’

The inveterate habit of rowers on the descent of
the Yang-Tseis to stop at the first puff of wind: they
instantly come to the conclusion that the breeze is
going to increase, and that it is prudent to lie by. But
the European, who also knows the danger of navigating
the river in a high wind with a flat-bottomed junk
whose forecastle is very tall, does not however forget
that progression is possible as long as the wind does
not exceed a certain strength, and if he is able to
impose his authority the boat will go with the current
and will travel a great distance instead of remaining
anchored to the shore.

Oh the brave fellows, always merry, always laughing,
always docile, when one has learned how to rule them I
Precious helpers whom one hopes to meet with again.

THE AGRICULTURIST

In China, more than anywhere else, the peasant is
the resigned and needy insect whose ideal is bounded

^ Measure of distance.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

by the hope of a good harvest. More than any other
class he has not a vestige of influence, living as he
does in the middle of his land and aiming at a tran-
quillity which is too often denied him, for in the
empire no one as much as the man of the fields is the
victim of easy oppression. Thus when he has satisfied
the tax gatherer, he must reckon with all the tou fei,
bandits, who become particularly pressing at certain
seasons, - harvest time, for instance. At this season
the labourer must sleep in the fields, or if he is a
small proprietor must pay guardians. And when he
has gathered in his crops very often the bandits come
one day and signify to the unfortunate man that he
must let them collect a tithe.

He generally allows this, and does not defend him-
self. It happens thus in the Min Valley, at least, and
the situation is not very different in the rest of the
empire. If the land were not so parcelled out, and there
existed more proprietors of substance with means
for action and resistance, the lot of the agriculturist
would be less precarious and a more efficacious pro-
tection would be assured him, partly by pressure on
the mandarin, but mainly thanks to a police force
organized by those interested, - all who live by the
culture of the soil. But the Chinese peasant is incap-
able of any such effort. The only protest he makes,
when too much has been ground out of him, is directed
against the fiscal administration, and consists of a refusal
to bring his beasts and grains and vegetables to the
market on a certain day. But this revolt is rare, and
he gets no great benefit from it.

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CLASSES OF SOCIETY

One sees that the situation of the Chinese agricul-
turist is not to be envied: without any instruction, even
of a practical character, ignorant of everything but his
calling, a man of routine to excess, opposed to any
method which was not his ancestors’, he is condemned
for a long time yet to a precarious existence without
any prospect of betterment. Moreover, I should not
like to say that he has ever dreamed of a better lot;
his desires, like his outlook, are very limited. He sin-
cerely believes that his methods of culture are infal-
lible, and that no other methods exist; he is convinced,
in short, that he is the best agriculturist in the world.
This quite platonic satisfaction is, for those who know
the Chinese, a soothing balm of astonishing efficacy.
The pride of this race explains its resignations.

The labourer would not suffer from the mediocrity
of his lot, if there were no taxes and no bandits. When
he has appeased even their rapacity, he experiences
the dreary contentment of the man who has not been
robbed of everything, and, surrounded by his family,
his beasts, and even his gods, father, grandfather and
ancestors, he has nothing definite to wish for. His
consolations and his hopes of future abundance of the
fruits of the earth rest entirely on the little shelf, the
chen chou, where the spirits of his ancestors reside, and
at the appointed hour before the hiang ki, the family
altar, he officiates every day, as priest of his own cult.

There remains to me to describe those whom I will
call the outcaste classes, the ti teou tsiang, hairdresser,
the hsi pan tze^ comedian, and the kao houa tze.

The hairdresser is thus relegated to the lower

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Stratum of Chinese society, because his trade obliges
him to work standing, while his most miserable cus-
tomer is seated. In the empire the positions ‘seated’
or ‘lying’ constitute an authority which the hairdresser
at work can never enjoy. To plane a piece of wood,
to plough a furrow, to push a wheelbarrow, or drag
a load are still respectable professions, of prime utility,
but the office of hairdresser seems to every one to be
degrading in some way. He rarely has a shop in the
street; he carries his apparatus about with him all day,
entering any house where he is summoned, or installing
himself at inn doorways. He is a very busy personage,
for never in any circumstances of life does a China-
man shave himself; he is greatly astonished to see the
European commence that operation. However im-
poverished he is, as soon as he has some few necessary
sapiques, he invites a ti teou ti to shave him and cut
his hair.

After the hairdresser comes immediately the kao
houa tze^ the beggar: this gnawing canker of China,
always hideous, this corporation which contains no-
thing to excite interest, for it is the dregs of the popu-
lation, formed of unwholesome and incorrigibly idle
elements, rather than poor cripples and invalids - this
corporation, however, does not stand on the lowest
rung of the outcaste ladder. The beggar stands above
the hsi pan tze^ the comedian; the latter is much more
despised. It is known that he is actor and actress at
the same time, that he plays all roles, very often, even
under concrete forms. He is in his right place in the
social ladder established by the son of Han.

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GENERAL CULTURE OF THE SOCIAL CLASSES

The means of education are sufficiently general in
China, and yet the number of illiterates is consider-
able. What, however, is of practical importance is
that all studies are purely literary and philosophical,
and that the Chinese are ignorant of all the modern
physical and natural sciences, - an unfathomable gap
which goes a long way to explain the social and
economic stagnation of centuries in one of the oldest
civilizations in the world. Letters, in fact, though
they adorn the mind, enlarge the domain of thought
and embellish life, cannot give that solidity, that vigour
and sureness of judgment which is conferred by the
study of science. Similarly, all the philosophic specu-
lations in the world could not be productive of those
amazing advances in the material and moral sphere,
whose beginning goes back to those new ways which
the brain of the white race opened for itself. The
Chinaman, never having been capable of such an
effort, lives in the past on the patrimony of his ances-
tors of thousands of years ago. By his choice of sub-
ject, by the imperfect instrument to his hand, his
written language, so complicated and so involved that
the whole life of learned men is occupied in decipher-
ing it, he has succeeded in developing his memory to
the detriment of his reasoning powers. Having to
store his brain with too many formulas, too many
tortuous and fanciful signs from which all method is
excluded, he has overworked it, and has deprived it of
all flexibility. He has stuffed his brain, imagining

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

that he was nourishing it, and behold, it has remained
sterile, without producing the energy expected from
it, and henceforth and for a long time to come it will
be incapable of creative reaction. Yet if the China-
man had been able to diagnose his disease and dis-
cover the causes, what immense benefits might result
for him and for humanity, and all the greater because
he is the pacifist excellenceX

Thus, absorbed in his book of verse or speculative
philosophy, the Chinaman has never discovered the
composition of air and water, and in consequence a
thousand things in his surroundings, placed there to
develop his well-being, and increase his wealth, are
hidden from him. And his pride is so enormous, and
so strong is his conviction that he has realized in
everything the highest and the best, that he refuses
to acknowledge in European inventions anything
other than a sort of magic, without intellectual basis.
Our sciences are little appreciated by him; they par-
take of the knowledge of the alchemist, the astrologer,
or of a necromancer more astute than his own, and
better inspired by the spirits. All this nonsense draws
its inspiration, in his opinion, from occultism. He,
on the contrary, cultivates letters, and though he has
no machines he has ouen tchang, literary composition,
and thus he soars above all the peoples. If you tell
him that you too have a weakness for literature, that
your race loves it, and has been brought up on it
for centuries, and still feeds on it, your assertion is
received with a polite smile but complete incredulity.
He alone has been nourished by the Muse, he alone

146

CLASSES OF SOCIETY

has been able to form sound and fruitful maxims for
the building up and the maintenance of an empire.
Greek and Roman literature and the history of the
brilliant nations who produced it are totally unknown
to him; his chroniclers have done little more than
indicate certain commercial relations which the
Celestial Empire has had with the Ta-Tsin, whom
they believe to have been Latins. In the last twenty
years, however, the sciences which they call European
have been admitted into the official curriculum.

Nor has the Chinaman knowledge of the external
world as it is (exception must be made naturally of cer-
tain privileged persons who have been sent to Europe
or the United States) either through his geography
or his books. The science of geography for him is
bounded by his own empire, and while a French child
of thirteen knows what the Yellow River is or the Gulf
of Petchili, a Chinese child or the most learned man-
darin of the lettered classes has perhaps heard of
Europe, but has no idea of its configuration, of the
seas that wash its shores, or the rivers that water it.
A small European’s education includes lessons on all
sorts of things, by the use of museums, exhibitions,
books filled with pictures, where the known world
with all its fauna and flora is spread out before him
in an almost palpable form. More than that, many
of our towns have public gardens where exotic plants,
and often wild animals, are exhibited for every one to
see, so that a child sees them and distinguishes them
as soon as he learns to recognize the domestic animals
of his own country. The Chinese child has no such

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

means of instruction; nothing of the kind exists in
his towns, and more than that he will not find in his
master’s books the best of all instructions, - the
picture.

The technique of teaching in the Celestial Empire
confined itself up to less than twenty years ago to a
perpetual recitation, where the auditory memory
played the principal part, the visual memory having
much less to do. While our educational system
improves every day, that of the Chinaman has remained
unchanged until the last few years. Now, however,
under the pressure of historic events, the Confucian
programme has been modified.

To sum up, the child of the white race is a savant
compared to his little yellow brother, and as far as
knowledge of the outside world, its oceans and con-
tinents, he is better informed than the whole crowd of
old Chinese mandarins.

During these last years there has been a good deal
of translating and editing of the Annals of the Empire ;
it is acknowledged that the authors have recorded
with great care all sorts of small details, which will
serve to throw light on ancient history. But what
strikes one, in reading these works, is the total absence
of serious criticism and explanation of the events
recorded : they are simply chronicles, not those immor-
tal works which certain men of Greece and Rome
brought forth, works which, in describing the life of
an empire, light up a whole period of the evolution
of humanity.

CHAPTER XI

ECONOMIC POSITION OF THE
VARIOUS CLASSES OF SOCIETY

F rom the foregoing statement one will naturally
expect certain inevitable economic consequences
resulting from the neglect of all scientific education
in China up to recent years. The Chinaman’s first
conquests in agriculture and industry had one day an
abrupt check in their course, his intelligence having
reached the maximum of efficiency on the path on to
which it had been shunted. To make further advances,
he would have had to examine nature, to scrutinize,
to analyse, not to dream; he would have had to seek
out a new field of action, enter upon a new struggle,
and cease to celebrate the victories of the past, and
hypnotize himself in the contemplation of faded laurels.
What more would have been required.? Not to look
behind him towards the achievements of his ancestors,
but to throw himself forward, in order to develop
them, ennoble them, and spread the dazzling rays as
far as the confines of the most backward of barbarian
peoples. But no, the Chinaman has felt no joy in
effort, and, delighting in a fatal repose, he has remained
the simple imitator of his ancestors. Hence, when the
population increased, resources formerly abundant
barely sufficed for its needs, and in the course of cen-
turies each one’s share has come to be reduced to the
barest minimum sufficient to keep body and soul
together. Anyone who knows China wonders how the
problem of food supply would be solved, if its many

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

scourges - civil wars, floods, epidemics - did not carry
off millions of hungry mouths every year. Without
these plagues, there would be abominable fratricidal
struggles as to who should seize the bowl of rice or
the wheat cake to appease his hunger. Is it not hor-
rible to have to wonder which of these calamities is
least murderous?

As the return from the soil diminished more and
more the Chinaman endeavoured to increase at any
cost the area of arable land, and the tree was therefore
condemned : everywhere it was pitilessly attacked, and
picturesque thicket and mighty forest disappeared
from the face of the earth. The improvident peasant
had soon to expiate his unfortunate miscalculation,
and not possessing the energy to seek out new methods
of culture more productive than his own, and being
unable for want of scientific education to get food of
a sort out of every kind of soil, he found himself, a
century later, with the same area of cultivation as
before the destruction of the unhappy trees. With the
disappearance of these great protectors, the rich strata
on tablelands and slopes of immense more or less
undulating regions lost a great deal of their fertility,
even when they did not become absolutely sterile : and
the Chinaman found himself faced with the old prob-
lem. He has not solved it; partly because the most
favoured provinces are unable, for want of easy means
of communication, to send their superabundance to
others.^

‘ The few railways have been recendy constructed with European
capital and technical skill.

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ECONOMIC POSITION

The great divisions of the empire, geographical and
administrative, are so many self-contained regions liv-
ing their own life, without continuous or well-sustained
economic relations. There certainly exist fine water-
ways, not to mention their artificial connecting links,
of which the Grand Canal is a striking example, but
failure to promote the normal flow of the natural
watercourses and neglect in the upkeep of the canals,
whose construction formerly lost such enormous labour,
have the effect of making transport very slow and
very costly, even at the most favourable seasons of the
year. It is all the slower and more expensive because
the means of propulsion employed are most primitive.
What is wanted is good substantial land roads, and
if the Chinese would go in for breeding draught
animals in those regions suited by nature to this branch
of agriculture, rapid transport by means of large
vehicles could be effected. In Manchuria and other
Northern provinces an attempt in this direction has
indeed been made ; but no care has been taken to keep
the roads in proper condition. Only when the soil is
frozen hard by intense cold can the wagons pass along
them ; during six months of the year all traffic by road
is interrupted. The few hundreds of miles of broad
roads suitable for vehicular traffic constructed during
the last five or six years have little practical value
because they are unmetalled.

China, lacking then the necessary science and also
possessing neither foresight nor the requisite energy,
has failed in the task of providing the bare means of
subsistence, to say nothing of wealth. At the present

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

day the terrible complaint of the unfortunate - 'chao
tche, chao tchouarty - ‘little to eat, little to wear,’ -
expresses the straitened circumstances, the general
poverty of the mass of the people. The systematic
abandonment of all stock-raising, except animals indis-
pensable in farming, has deprived all China, save the
Northern region, of a considerable amount of food, a
loss not compensated for by the increase in arable
land. And the calculation was all the more mistaken,
at any rate as regards the Great West, as the preserva-
tion of the forest would at the same time have assured
the enjoyment indefinitely of pasture land, and land
to cultivate cereals other than rice, without mention-
ing all the resources obtained from forestry. And the
valley bottoms could still have been utilized for rice-
growing.

As he has not cattle, the Chinaman is deprived of
this rich source of nourishment, which yields not only
meat, but milk, and the butter and cheese extracted
from it. He certainly has a cheese of his own, or what
he calls cheese, from its appearance. But it is made
of fermented bean flour (teou fou), and there is no milk
in it. Rice, wheat and millet are the three principal
foods of the Chinaman; the culture of vegetables is
also highly developed. Unhappily, when there is
either drought or flood, production is reduced, and in
all the provinces this sad occurrence is very frequent,
on account of the cutting down of the woods. The
three principal cereals then increase in price, the first
especially, and are no longer within the reach of the
large class of artisans and porters of all kinds. Even

152

ECONOMIC POSITION

granting easy means of communication, the inhabitant
of Szechwan, for instance, could not get the rice he
wants from the Eastern provinces; for burdened with
the cost of carriage it would be too dear for him to
buy. His purchasing power is extremely small: his
industries are so primitive, he has so limited his pro-
duction by the extreme of regulation, and by excessive
reduction of the hours of labour - a reduction grateful
to his love of ease - that these industries bring a ridicu-
lously small profit to both master and man. The sub-
soil is excessively rich in coal and minerals of all kinds,
but he exploits them so badly and the transport is so
onerous, that not only is he unable to export, but the
price of both coal and metal is very high for internal
trade.

Such is the situation of the inhabitant of Szechwan,
who can however consider himself as the occupant of
the most favoured province of the whole empire.
Poverty, therefore, is great: the people are reduced to
live on vegetables, happy if they can add to them a
bowl of rice or a wheat cake. Among vegetables, the
principal foods of the masses are gourds, cucumbers
and pumpkins, largely cultivated throughout China,
which fill the stomach, and cheat the hunger of millions
of poor wretches. These pumpkins and gourds are
not peeled before boiling; every bit of them is devoured.
There are no peelings and parings in China, even in
Szechwan, and though amongst the upper classes the
servants cut away the outsides, the remains are not
thrown to animals but to men.

Another variety of vegetable of which the consump-

*53

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

tion is enormous in all classes is the han tsai^ or dried
vegetable of which I have made mention. More even
than the gourd, it is the chief food of the poorer class,
which eats it with its rice, when it can get any, but
too often, alas! it forms the only nourishment of mil-
lions of Chinese. During the hot season, for this class
of starveling, the tsai is replaced by the (gourds

and cucumbers). Thus in Szechwan, as I have said, a
cabbage is cut into six or twelve slices, even some-
times more, to be sold in the street; a carrot, the long
indigenous carrot, is cut into two and four pieces. I
have seen miserable wretches, men and women, buy-
ing two pieces of carrot at a time, no more.

Rice is the food greatly preferred by the whole
population, thus the very poor make an effort to get
mi tang (rice water), that is to say, the water in which
rice has been boiled, and they drink it with ardour,
or mix it with their pittance of food. Leaves of certain
trees, buds of plants and scrubs, grasses with nothing
eatable about them, and which in any other country
none would dream of utilizing, are plucked to make
thin soup. There is no infected carrion which the
Chinaman will hesitate to eat: old sows, nothing but
skin and bone, dead of starvation, and dead dogs, are
greedily picked up and devoured. When I was cross-
ing the roads of Chengtufu with my little fox-terrier,
who was in excellent condition, she was gazed at with
such covetous looks that I was afraid of losing her,
certain of the fate that awaited her. Every moment I
heard */« te hen' - ‘she is very fat’ - an expression
which I did not like, as 1 knew its significance.

*54

ECONOMIC POSITION

In clothing, as in food, only the small minority in
easy circumstances have plenty: the mass cannot afford
to dress themselves in silken stuffs; cotton and linen
serve for them. But none of these tissues can replace
wool, so warm and useful. It is incomprehensible that
the Chinaman has rejected this precious product, when
he has in the North and the West flocks of sheep
which could clothe a large part of the population.

This is yet another proof of the want of adaptation
in the Chinaman, and his failure to profit by the
resources of new surroundings : he seems entirely unable
to free himself in any fashion from ancestral servitude ;
original conceptions, a new vision of things, seem
forbidden to him.

In the course of this recital, I have mentioned that
I have never seen so many rags as in China, and such
rags ! I shall not try to describe them. No bit of tinsel,
no filthy scrap, but is utilized of necessity, alas! The
surgical dressings, the cotton wool stained with serum,
which had served to cover a sore, were in great demand
by the unfortunates who came to consult me. At first
we had great trouble to get them returned to be burnt ;
they wanted to keep them, the cotton wool especially,
which would have been utilized in some way for winter
clothing.

I have told also of the poverty of the Chinese in
linen, even among the upper classes: it may almost be
said that he possesses none. Our peasants are better
dowered in this than any mandarin.

And the house: it is most frequently of thin planks
or of mud wall, protecting neither from cold nor heat;

*55

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

all the more dreary and gloomy by the light of a
lantern of colza oil. The little oil lamp ! The China-
man has never advanced further from the method
of lighting which his ancestors’ ingenuity adopted
centuries ago: nothing has changed since. But for
some ten or fifteen years petrol has been intro-
duced into China, and even electricity in certain
towns.

The house is not further brightened by the cheerful
wood fire of our humblest cottages, since it has no
chimney, still less a stove. The bed of bricks heated
from underneath, the kong^ exists only in the North.
The rich themselves suffer from the cold, under their
cumbersome robes stuffed with wadding, and go to
bed fully clothed. As for the poor, how they must
shiver and shake with cold, their rags gaping with a
hundred holes! In vain they draw their shreds of
clothing round their bodies blue with cold; they never
manage to protect themselves entirely - their wretched
bodies, which the itch has not ceased to prey upon
since they came into the world.

Even supposing the Chinese house were provided
with a chimney, the mass of population could not be
warmed, not only because they are so poor, but because
the forests have been so completely cut down that
wood has become exceedingly scarce. To cook the
daily food, where there is no coal to be had, they make
use of brambles, grass, dead leaves or the stalks of
maize or sorghum, when the harvest is over. This
combustible is so precious that the Chinese are accus-
tomed to only half cook their food, collecting at the

156

ECONOMIC POSITION

end of the operation the most minute twig not entirely
burnt. In this matter, there are miracles of foresight
and astounding economy. Thus in order to reduce
the expense of firing to a minimum, they manufacture
stewpans and other kitchen utensils with an extremely
thin broad bottom, so that the heat may be brought
to bear more quickly, and more directly, on the food
to be cooked.

It is easy to understand that a people whose economic
organization is from some standpoints so mediocre
should be forced to move in a circle of immediate
necessities, from which there is no escaping. They
can have no reserves, and must live from hand to
mouth. In Szechwan, as in the rest of China, except
the open ports, the little bank, the small shop, the
petty commerce is the rule. There is so little money
that a large number of partners is required in order
to start the most trifling undertaking, requiring a
capital of iC 400 j fo*" instance. For much less than that,
to complete insignificant sums with the view of estab-
lishing a little village market, the co-operation of
several individuals is necessary. It is said that the
Chinaman has a mania for going into partnership;
that is true, but the low level of his resources and his
inertia make this obligatory.

When we now consider the position of the shop-
keeper himself, we shall understand that his stock is
confined to a very small limit; he cannot aflFord to
have considerable reserves, and only oraers according
to his immediate requirements. Shops on the model
not of the Louvre or the Bon Marche but more simply

157 M

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

on that of our large retail establishments do not even
exist, except in the international towns. The tailor,
the shoemaker, the hatter work to order, generally;
ready-made clothes, shoes and hats are to be had only
in very small quantity. If you want an article of a
rather higher price - a pair of boots, for instance - the
shoemaker will ask for your money in advance, not
because he does not trust you, but in order to buy the
leather he will require. If you refuse, you run the risk
of never having any boots, unless you buy the common
kind made for soldiers. I could multiply examples of
this general shortage of spare cash.

To sum up, by faulty and especially by insufficient
utilization of the immense resources both above and
below the soil, the Chinaman exists only miserably,
never sure of the morrow. Even his daily subsistence
is at the mercy of a flood or a period of drought,
calamities which he could frequently avoid or render
less disastrous by looking ahead.

The Central Government, confronted with the
people’s want of foresight, did indeed establish reserve
stores, intended to be filled in the years of abundance,
but there are too many good reasons in China, apart
from the constitutional repugnance to sustained effort,
for such an institution to be efficacious.

158

CHAPTER XII

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

T he following reflections sum up and complete
what I have already said on the subject of Chinese
mentality.

Their aim is to try to describe the intellectual char-
acteristics of the Chinaman, as they can be observed at
the present time, but it is very clear to anyone who looks
at the China of to-day that she must have been greatly
different at a remote period - that her people once pos-
sessed energy and vitality which have now disappeared,
and that the vastest of empires has come under the
inexorable law of world evolution: like Nineveh and
Babylon, Athens and Rome, it knew a radiant apothe-
osis, but to-day there is the sadness of decline.

Starting from the banks of the Hoang-ho and the
Wei to extend his rule, the Chinaman little by little con-
quered by means of his ancient superiority the whole of
the immense territory which constitutes the present
empire. Then, being of opinion that his organization,
political, social and economic, had reached its highest
point, he began to moderate his efforts. What were the
consequences.? The first result, and for us the most
astounding of all, was his crystallization in methods
now thousands of years old, and often so primitive that
constant change should have been the rule.

Some one day, in the course of the centimes, he must
have conceived a type of house, a type of clothing, and
a means of transport for land and water, and then
formed the opinion that in each of these he had realized

*59

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

perfection. Then, being satisfied that his choice of
foods, his methods of cultivation, his agricultural imple-
ments, all answered to his present and future needs —
that his industries with the plant and equipment at their
disposal could not fail to meet all the demands of his
social organization, he decreed, it seems, that he must
now call a halt, and that any new effort towards imagin-
ary perfection was useless. What would lead us to think
that the Chinaman has been capable of thus enclosing
himself, no longer to budge, in a circle of achievements
of a material character (recognized as superior to those
of the vanquished peoples surrounding him), is the fact
that, once he had adopted the Confucian system of
philosophy, he took no further trouble in the course of
the centuries to verify its intrinsic value, but bowed to
it in the most passive manner conceivable, without the
slightest desire for further examination into its merits.

When, therefore, we look for the primal cause of the
physical and intellectual stagnation and mummification
of the empire, it appears to be nothing other than an
insufficiency of brain-power in the Chinaman, with the
defects which that entails — a feebleness of creative re-
action, manifest even at the period of maturity, and
growing gradually worse until it becomes absolute im-
mobility in the period of decline.^ The indications are
numerous and striking; we have only to consider the
real value of his advances in the economic sphere in
order to estimate the extent of the acquisitions with
which he is so proudly satisfied.

In agriculture I have just told how far he has ad-

^ There is a second cause which is explained further on.

i6o

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

vanced; his is the patient and persistent work of a small
labourer or market gardener, who manures and irri-
gates his field conscientiously, and makes great exer-
tions to produce the maximum yield, but who has not
come to understand the importance of adapting his
methods to different soils, or the necessity of a variety
of fertilizers as against the continuous employment of
human manure. But the great error committed, author
of so much poverty, was the wilful and pitiless destruc-
tion of the forests, with the object of increasing the area
of arable land; in the periodic floods which followed,
the standing crops were injured, even his cherished rice-
fields themselves were reduced, by the deposit of sand
and pebbles which covered their precious humus. The
Chinaman also has no idea that trees are condensers of
moisture, and that the destruction of the forests has
deprived him of beneficial showers, so indispensable
during the spring and summer months in a climate of
tropical heat.

On his real territory, in the immense plains of the
East, terrible necessity spurred the Chinaman to exer-
tion; in order to defend his property and his harvest
against the waters of great rivers which overflowed on
both banks at certain seasons of the year, he heaped up
earth, unwearyingly and unendingly, raising formidable
dikes. But though he built them conscientiously, he
was often negligent and failed to keep his fragile bar-
riers always in repair; floods remained and will long
remain one of the great calamities of the empire.

Though the dike was a simple means of defence in
no way impressive, the same cannot be said of the

i6i

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

irrigation of vast districts where the agriculturist, in
violation of nature, has turned the whole country into
a rice-field; that is the Chinaman’s great masterpiece.
But was he happily inspired.^ In sacrificing the mar-
vellous valleys, the fertile tablelands, to satisfy his
ancestral taste, did he not tend to deprive himself of
varied food supplies, better adapted than rice to the
climatic conditions of the new countries he was then
colonizing?

What an error he committed, moreover, when as
against the enormous advantage in food supply which
the breeding of stock affords, he set the extension of
rice cultivation and nourishing vegetables, rendered
possible only by the abolition of all pasture and of all
forest. If the idea was mistaken, its execution was
lamentable, in its heedless want of foresight, and the
lack of any attempt to check results. The arable sur-
face, as I have already explained, has been thereby
diminished, and is diminishing year by year; the net
yield, always a gamble, is almost entirely at the mercy
of atmospheric caprice, to an extent unknown in our
country. Thus Szechwan, where nature as it were has
made every preparation for a marvellous and continuous
prosperity, has experienced since 1900 two terrible
famines, caused by drought or flood. Again, the culti-
vated area, suffering from overcropping, can no longer
yield its normal return, and it is not such methods of
fertilizing the soil which the Chinaman employs which
will allow it to make good its exhaustion. And when
the harvest promises well, and the cereal needs only
to mature, by what madness does the Chinaman hasten

162

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

to reap it before it is ripe, thus entailing a serious loss
in weight? In the same way, why does he always
gather his fruit when it is green? It cannot always have
been his method : at the present day, no doubt, neces-
sity obliges him, his meagre reserves being prematurely
exhausted before the harvest is due. And when the
reaping is over, and he is in possession of his grain,
does he plan out its consumption so as to be ready
for the next season’s harvest? If, moreover, there is
an abundant year, does he think of putting by some
provision for the future? Generally not, and yet for
centuries misfortune has never ceased to warn him to
be perpetually on the watch; he remains deaf to its
warnings of calamity. Is not this behaviour heedless-
ness and improvidence carried to its extreme point?
And if he has appreciated the imperative necessity of
selection in seeds as in animals, why has he never
applied the knowledge? Surely there is here a grave
disregard of that law of self-defence which urges man
to seek by every means the increase of his material
resources.

To clothe himself, we have seen that the Chinaman
has not turned to profit all his possessions ; he has dis-
dained, because he has not known its value, the woollen
material from which man throughout the ages has
drawn most comfort. And though our first impulse is
to praise him for the changelessness of his fashion in
dress, and admire the simplicity and sobriety of his
habits in comparison with our extreme changeableness
and frivolity, on reflection we are led to conclude that
this simplicity is not a virtue, but rather comes from

163

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

cerebral inactivity and incapacity to invent; for change
in our day is nearly always progress.

In the art of building, it has already been seen pre-
cisely how far the Chinaman has advanced, and with
what kind of habitation he is content; it must be
admitted that he has no proper understanding of
hygiene, or of the most elementary standard of com-
fort, towards which mankind has been incessantly
urged by the physical suffering entailed by extreme
cold and extreme heat.

In his various industries, none have reached a high
level, and some have remained in their primitive state,
another evidence of his creative incapacity; his means
of transport, for instance, have never gone beyond
the junk, the wheelbarrow, and the very primitive
cart. Of glass and soap he knew nothing until the
advent of the European; he knows only a few metals,
and only the simplest applied uses of them; he has
never been able to extract anything from coal, which
is to him mere fuel.

To sum up, the Chinaman has achieved little mastery
over nature, and is completely unconscious that he is
squandering enormous sources of wealth.

With regard to his scientific attainments, I have
already pointed out that he does not even know what
air and water are made of, and has never had a glim-
mering of the great physical and natural laws. His
medical science is in its infancy, and surgery is not
yet born. Are there not here proofs of a limited intelli-
gence without breadth of vision and incapable of
growth.? So meagre indeed is the creative intelligence

164

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

of the Chinaman, that one is tempted to wonder
whether, when he arrived from the West to colonize
the valley of the Hoang-ho, he was not already equipped
with a borrowed civilization. With this advantage he
would have little trouble in dominating the indigenous
inhabitants, who were very inferior even to himself (as
I had the opportunity of remarking in Szechwan).
Among these primitive races, divided into numerous
clans, always at war with one another, the spirit of
intrigue, so strong in the Chinaman, would find full
play in keeping up their intestine warfare. By dividing,
he ruled.

The Chinaman, I have said, is ignorant of science;
has he penetrated as far as other races in philosophy
and literature.? If he is compared to his contemporaries
of past ages, he is of course far behind the Greek
genius. His poetry, of which he is so proud, is, with
few exceptions, affected and artificial, without breadth
or loftiness. There is no painting of natural beauty
with a large brush, such as is inspired by the actual
contemplation of nature. On the contrary he chooses
for his inspiration the artificial background of a for-
mally laid out garden, delighting in minute and detailed
descriptive sketches.

In history he is nothing but a chronicler, but in
philosophy he has surpassed himself, and if he has
advanced less far in analysis and in observation than
others have done, and has freely borrowed, still he
possesses a code of morals very humane on certain
sides.

Let us now examine what the Chinaman has achieved

165

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

in the social sphere, or rather let us draw conclusions
from the preceding statements on the family, and the
different classes which make up the nation.

As regards the family, only a people lacking in the
critical spirit could have evolved such a monument of
selfishness and tyranny. If the Chinaman had been
endowed with some vigour of mind, with some kind
of capacity for reaction, he would by now have gradu-
ally modified such a menace to individual liberty, giv-
ing to the family unit at once more elasticity and a
more real cohesion, and choosing for its foundation
not fear so much as affection. The subjection exacted
from the son, imposing on him the duty of looking
backwards for the inspiration of his present and future
conduct to the behaviour and opinions of his father,
must lead to apathy and stagnation. Are not all initia-
tive, and effort towards better and more ideal condi-
tions, thus killed in the germ.? If the Chinese family
indeed forms a remarkably solid entity, with what
elements of weakness is it infected 1 Under European
influence, reaction against parental rule has begun;
unfortunately, young China is advancing much too
fast.

The social grouping naturally follows the model of
the family, and the hierarchy is based on the same
principles. A powerful caste is formed which permits
of no competitor, imposing its will on the mass as
absolute dictator, and maintaining that rule thanks to
qualities which seem to the European quite inadequate
to justify such supremacy. The form even of this
domination seems to us incompatible with the pros-

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

perity and well-being of a people. Is it not something
to wonder at that there has never arisen a middle
class.? A middle class with an education other than
the official erudition, or, if you will, made up of intelli-
gent members of the lettered class, but who care for
knowledge more than for power and honour - a middle
class with sufficient organization to counterbalance the
oligarchy of the mandarins.? By studying the condition
of the masses and the inadequacy of their powers
of improvement, by creating an enlightened public
opinion, by controlling and advising the governors of
the provinces in the exercise of their authority, this
class might have transformed Chinese society, might
have galvanized it into life, might have impelled it
towards progress. But, in the course of centuries, the
elements capable of initiative and sustained endeavour
have never made their appearance; the Chinaman
evidently lacks the necessary intellectual energy. For
when the consciousness of its natural rights awakes
in a people of virile progressive capabilities, all the
precepts and all the maxims, which prop up a supremacy
based on the violation of liberty, rapidly become
ineffectual. Having found no trace of such an awaken-
ing at any stage of Chinese history, one is forced to
the conclusion that some physiological element is
wanting in the Chinaman.

If now we examine the present condition of the
Chinese mind, what do we see? The first and normal
manifestation of a sound organ is its reactions to move-
ment and activity: this is the necessary condition of
regular functioning. It is desirable in the first place

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

to consider how far the Chinaman possesses the most
important of all forms of activity - the creative faculty.

The answer can be given in a few words: he has
created nothing for 2,000 years, and, more than that,
he seems incapable of bringing any industry whatever
to perfection. Of late years, when employed by Euro-
peans to work their machines, it was found that he
learned quickly how to manage them and how to profit
by them, but he could never suggest any improvement
to them; on the contrary, if he were not continually
stirred up and watched by the European, he would
soon diminish their working efficiency by neglect.

Do we find in the physical state of the Chinaman
any evidences of lack of cerebral activity.? Yes; the
Chinaman will pass from waking to sleeping with
extraordinary ease; as soon as he ceases active occupa-
tion, his organs enter into physiological repose - he
falls asleep. You may note this anywhere in China;
if, for instance, he has been walking along the road and
steps into a sedan chair, slumber instantly overtakes him.

His senses have not the same acuteness as those of
the European; his sight and his hearing have not the
same fineness or rapidity of perception; his sense of
smell is very imperfect; certain evil-smelling substances
make hardly any impression on his olfactory organs.
He will swallow the most horrible tasting medicines
with extraordinary ease, and his sense of touch is
inferior to ours: that is to say, he presents the pheno-
menon of attenuated sensation.

One can affirm as a general rule without fear of
error that the functioning powers of the diflferent

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

organs in the yellow man are inferior to those of the
white. This commonplace is confirmed by physiological
and pathological observation. I will cite only the fact
that the blood circulates more slowly, and renders the
organism less apt to defensive reactions.

This dullness of the senses, just referred to, points
to physical decadence consequent on torpor of the
nerves in a people unaccustomed to, if not incapable
of, effort, whose benumbed brain is awakened only
by violent sensations.

From the preceding it will be easily seen that the
common manifestation of nervous activity called ‘pay-
ing attention’ will be markedly inferior to ours, under
its two heads, intensity and duration. For instance, a
Chinese steersman or engineer may have at any time
moments of forgetfulness inconceivable to us — lapses
which may have such serious consequences that con-
stant supervision of him is necessary. The steamers of
the Yang-Tse are obliged to have a larger personnel of
white officers, because the Chinese crews must be
incessantly supervised, for fear of disquieting lapses
in difficult places. And yet the pilot knows the dan-
gerous points in his river quite well; his memory is
rarely at fault; the engineer knows all the secrets of
his engine’s working; but the one and the other may
be betrayed at any moment by the weakness of their
nerve power, and attention will have ceased to act.
You notice the same defect in the artisan; the spinner
is incapable of supplying you with a uniform thread, or
the dyer of preparing two vats of equal concentration.

A striking example of the Chinaman’s lack of con-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

centration is shown too in his incapacity to bear in
mind two contingencies at the same time. Passing
through the streets of Chengtufu, on horseback or
in a chair, I constantly noticed that the Chinaman
when occupied in staring at the foreigner would let
his child go under the horse’s feet or get trampled
on by the porters. If in crossing a road in Shanghai a
Chinaman is struck in the chest by the shaft of a
carriage, he will be greatly surprised, not realizing
that though he had avoided a jinricksha or a bicycle
he had not noticed the carriage. The power of atten-
tion in the European, which allows him by sight and
hearing to follow the line of several vehicles at once
when he leaves the pavement to cross a crowded
thoroughfare, does not exist in the other race. If you
give two or three orders at the same time to a servant
- if you charge him to attend to more than one thing
at the same place and at the same time -you will
invariably repent it. Your cook in the exercise of his
art shows himself most unequal and eccentric; rarely
does he prepare any dish twice in the same way, not
because he does not know the recipe, but because he
is never able to fix his attention on it. If you are
teaching one of the lettered caste, beware of counting
on his capacity for mental strain; stop frequently, and
change the subject from time to time, unless your
lesson requires simply an effort of memory.

The Chinaman lacks judgment; he is wanting in
general ideas; he does not know how to analyse, much
less to synthetize; he has cultivated only his memory,
not his reasoning faculties, and is therefore incapable

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

of following up an idea or a study, of systematizing,
of disengaging the main thought. In ordinary life,
when he is carrying out a building contract, for ex-
ample, you perceive that he cannot make his ideas
objective; he cannot translate his mental designs,
group them, and represent them as a unit in a graphic
form, as our architects do. He is so little accustomed
to interrogate himself, to scrutinize, to grasp the
details and the complexity of things, that nothing
astonishes him; he confuses the most remarkable
achievements of human genius with the modest
triumphs of early times. All our science, and the admir-
able results which have been derived from it, remain
unintelligible to the Chinaman. Electricity, steam,
and their applied uses seem to him far removed from
a triumph of the intellect, a work of the brain. It is
chance that has favoured us, the dragon has been
benevolent, it is a lucky find. He becomes incredulous
when he is assured that the execution of such tasks
involves the absolute necessity of book-learning.

A mandarin was one day shown a motor-boat.
One counted upon signs of admiration after his exam-
ination of the machine. There was nothing of the
kind. All that he found to say was that the boat was
small, and that China possessed some much larger
junks. Similarly, it seems astonishing to the China-
man that a study of human anatomy should be regarded
as indispensable to the understanding of diseases. He
who has never paused over such details does not hesi-
tate to place his medical art at the same level as ours;
and even that is condescension on his part. Neverthe-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

less, in these later years, he has begun the study of
European medicine.

Not possessing general ideas or general information
and little given to reasoning, he understands the sig-
nificance of world-wide connections as little as that
of machines. Thus is to be explained the systematic
opposition which he has always offered to peaceful
European penetration. Having no analytical faculty,
the Chinaman cannot assemble and co-ordinate his
perceptions. Great combinations are wholly foreign to
his mind; in that immense empire political economy is
unknown, and a national budget has never been framed.

We have noted the present condition of his various
industrial undertakings: the moderate success with
which he has developed them arises naturally from
the same cause. This grave defect in the race is shown
even in art, in which the Chinese have nevertheless
distinguished themselves by so many beautiful ex-
amples. Art in the Chinaman appears to be almost
wholly an instinct, where study and experiment have
played a very small part, and to which scientific prin-
ciples have contributed nothing. Moreover, the limita-
tion of China’s artistic production to certain fields, in
which are not found the powerful harmonies of Greek
genius, for example, where an orderly intelligence eager
for truth was combined with natural inspiration, this
limitation, I say, tends to give weight to this assertion.

If we reach these conclusions regarding the educated
classes, what kind of reasoning is to be expected among
the masses? Something has already been said on the
subject, but nothing is more instructive than to observe

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

the servant class, a category which is nevertheless
more gifted with intelligence than the majority of
workers. You will notice that not only do they lack
initiative, but that they take no account of circum-
stances in carrying out the orders they have received.
For instance, your boy will have been told to o|>en
doors and windows when it is fine; if it comes on to
rain he will never think of shutting them, or if he
thinks of it he will hesitate, not being certain whether
it is wise for him to interfere. In rainy weather he
will spread out the carpets and mats to air just as in
dry weather, unless he is stopped in time.

Is there any sign of a critical and analytical spirit
among people who hamper their arms with immensely
long sleeves, and mutilate their women’s feet, thus
diminishing their usefulness by destroying the equili-
brium and the harmonious functioning of the body?
Is there any indication of the critical faculty in a social
organization which keeps individual units isolated, and
does not aim at grouping the various elements and
bringing about their solidarity? And what serious
political consequences follow such a blunder! Absence
of any link between the provinces except the adminis-
tration; life everywhere individual and not national;
the egotism which leads to weakness, never the altruism
which gives strength. Is it again an outcome of the
critical spirit which has organized a vast administrative
system without foreseeing the necessitv of financial
provision to ensure the livelihood of its officials, from
the high mandarin to the smallest clerk in the yamen?
Has not this omission paved the way for the corrupt

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

practices with which China is riddled, and from which
she suffers so terribly? Had it been otherwise, how
much healthier would have been the state of the
empire! Is it not surprising that for so many cen-
turies this people has been inspired by the moral
code drawn up by Confucius, without a thought of
subjecting it to criticism, and separating the true from
the false, the chaff from the good grain? Here again
the Chinaman accepts all that his masters give him,
and believes blindly in their teaching.

As foresight is nothing else than judgment and
preparation against the unexpected which is always
on the watch to surprise us, it is a branch of activity
only to be met with in strong races, at an advanced
stage in evolution. This effort and direction of thought
towards the future appears in a remarkable degree in
the European. Is it because he has suffered, and
remembers the past, and regrets his old defeats in the
struggle with nature and other enemies? Is it because
he desires to avoid the weaknesses and errors of his
forefathers, and to go on advancing always further?
Doubtless; but how can it be explained that other
races, who have suffered equally and are still suffering,
seem to forget to look ahead, and to guard against
threatening contingencies? The conquering monster,
the exterminator of empires, is waiting ready to spring,
he is scorching them with his hot breath, and yet they
dare make no preparation to put themselves on guard,
or if they bring themselves to attempt it their defensive
action is so stamped with miserable weakness that it
is rather an encouragement to attack.

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

What about the Chinaman’s physical activity? Is
he a worker, as has been so often repeated? Those
who have watched the coolie on the quays at Hong-
Kong or Shanghai, the labourer in his rice-fields, or
the craftsman in his shop, all cry, ‘What a worker the
Chinaman isl’ But why does the breathless coolie,
groaning his mournful ‘han,’ exert himself so violently
in loading or unloading the holds of great steamers,
carrying bales which seem overwhelming for his phy-
sique? Simply because competition is so fearful on
the coast; for one coolie who falls exhausted, there
are a hundred others to replace him. Poverty is such
that work must be accepted whatever it offers, and
even when it is out of proportion to his bodily capacity.
Besides, you will never see him left to himself while he
is working; he is sharply watched, for the bunkers
of steamers must be emptied or filled rapidly, the
motto of those who steer them across the oceans being,
‘Time is money.’

Though the Chinaman in the ports appears to be a
very active worker (under compulsion), he is very dif-
ferent left to himself in the vast interior of the country,
wherever he can be observed. He cannot bear con-
tinuous work; he interrupts it by every possible means;
rain, wind, rain especially, are constant pretexts to
excuse a spell of rest. Rain is dreaded by the China-
man to a point which would be unexampled cowardice
among us. Thus Admiral Ting, at the time of the
China-Japanese War, asked for a delay before he left
his ship, because it was raining at the hour fixed
for its surrender. One day, on my junk, I ordered a

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

soldier to fasten up a blind which a gust of wind had
torn loose; coming out of his shelter armed with an
umbrella because it was raining a little, he tried vainly
with one hand to execute my order. I advised him,
but in vain, to let go his umbrella, but he could not
bring himself to that. In the end I rushed out of my
cabin and fastened the blind myself. Many a time
has a downfall of rain put an end to public risings 1
The most excited are instantly calmed.

I remarked just now that the Chinaman does not
like continuous work; he prefers to interrupt it with
periods of loafing, and with interminable gossip, and
rarely deprives himself of them. Long ago the work-
man achieved not merely the eight-hour day but the
six-hour day. At Chengtufu for months I had an
opportunity of watching masons, carpenters, joiners
and roofers. It was winter; they began work about
nine o’clock - later, if the morning was dark; towards
midday they ate, and at four o’clock they got ready
to leave. At least every hour they took a little time
for rest, to gossip and smoke their pipes, or go out
into the street to drink a cup of tea. The quantity
of work achieved in a given time is infinitely small
compared to that of the white workman.

The artisan is so inactive and has so little conscien-
tiousness that his work is often rough and rarely
thorough. You should see how a plank is planed, or a
piece of metal-work ground, or how a screw is driven
in, or a bolt made, in the Shanghai dockyards, unless
there is minute supervision. Fitters’ work is generally
defective. Yet the Chinaman has great natural dex-

176

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

terity; when he takes pains he can get the best results,
but his negligence and his inattention seem to be
incurable.

You will find in the peasant the same slowness,
the same unsteadiness in work. If, moreover, he had
been endowed with real energy, would he not have
made more progress, learned to adapt his soil to dif-
ferent crops.^ Would he not have secured a larger aver-
age production.? Would he ever have died of starvation.?

Hypnotized by the artistic creations of the China-
man, the European has been eager to admire, and has
often carried his investigations no further; he has for-
gotten that a natural gift such as art does not neces-
sarily imply the existence among a people of those
solid qualities which are the health and strength of
nations.

Being lazy, the Chinaman soon came to aim at the
suppression of all competition by carrying trades-
unionism to an extreme, by limiting industrial produc-
tion to strict necessity, and by insisting on manufac-
turing indefinitely the same models. If a craftsman
or a manufacturer tries to free himself from the
tyranny of the guilds, he is quickly reduced to impo-
tence by their brutal intervention. What we call
‘fashion’ has thus never been able to establish itself
in the old empire.

What better example can be given of the inclina-
tion of the Chinaman than to recall hi*' repugnance
to all physical exercise, save in recent years under
our influence. The leisured European shoots, fishes,
works in his garden, endeavours in some way or other

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

to gratify his imperative need of exercise. The China-
man will spend his leisure lying or squatting indoors;
he will never go out to stretch his legs. Nothing
astonishes him so much as our activity. Should you
invite a young mandarin to imitate you - to ride on
horseback, for instance — after a trial he will confess
that he does not understand either the pleasure or
the use of such exercise. If you trot instead of ambling
as he does, he will think you ridiculous. The rich
man never thinks of travelling ; the poor man only leaves
his country to find a less meagre pittance elsewhere.

This inertia is still more striking in the child; he
does not play, he looks like a rigid little Buddha; he
rarely runs or jumps. During years passed in Szech-
wan I never once saw a child climb a tree to get a
bird’s nest. As for fights and tussles, so frequent with
our boys, they are one of the rarest sights in the empire.
Yes, the Chinese child in no way resembles that active
imp, the European child. The intense need of move-
ment, even the cruelty shown by the European child,
which is only an excess of his passion for domineering,
of his irresistible ardour for possession, all these
qualities and defects do not belong to the Chinese
child. When the scion of the white race grows up,
the unknown and the unconquered appeal to him; he
will rush to the conquest of the world, of the elements;
he will explore the bottom of the seas, or the mys-
terious vault of the skies; he will labour on the ice
at the Poles, or under the burning sun of the tropics.
The fever of work, of discovery, of the greater extension
of his field of action, torments and urges him on unceas-

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

ingly. He is indeed the conqueror, the being admirably
organized for final triumph in all struggle with other
races. He truly dominates the evolution of the present
world, guides it at his will. The activity which con-
sumes him, the strength of his will, his capacity for
sustained effort, cannot but carry him into the thick
of the fight unceasingly, where everything must yield
under his grasp, a living and active expression of his
marvellous constitution. See also what he has done to
develop to the utmost his physical strength and his
intellectual vigour. Does he not in a thousand ways
keep up the play of his muscles.? And by the organiza-
tion of his schools, his libraries, his museums, his
laboratories, by the extraordinary competition which
he provokes among the different ethnic groups of his
race, does he not every day increase his brain power.?

Do not imagine that the Chinaman has this agitated
brain, even in labour. No; the manifestations of his
activity are more modest. He has systematically neg-
lected the exercise of his muscles, learnt by heart the
poems and philosophic maxims of his great ancestors,
spent a whole life in tracing the characters of his script,
but has created nothing of any importance, beyond a
few poems or an obscure novel. At no moment did
he experience that thirst for learning, for seeing new
worlds, for examining the visible and the invisible,
which incessantly torments the European. At no time,
for example, has his energy taken him across the oceans,
except on courses already charted. Never has he
rounded Cape Horn or the Cape of Good Hope; that
was too much for him.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Fully satisfied with the achievements of his ances-
tors, who in his opinion had accomplished everything,
leaving no more scope for new discoveries or new
productions, he lived upon the past, indifferent to the
future, because his neurasthenic intelligence dreaded
effort, of which for centuries it has lost the habit.
And for his culture he had no need of the museums
and libraries of a despised race, no need of its labora-
tories. What was the use of them? Was there any
science equal to his own?

The state of his mind cannot be better symbolized
than by that of an old man whose intellect is fading
away, amid the pleasures of recollection, with his
favourite books around him, the pages of which he
has turned almost every day of his long career. He
does not want to hear of the sayings and doings of
the young, or, if he listens to their talk, it is only to
blame their imprudence, their foolish recklessness.
Any exertion has become intolerable to him; he has
finished with struggles. Let him not be disturbed in
the serene enjoyment of a well-earned repose ! Happily,
change is taking place among the young, but more
destructive than constructive.

Many will remark : ‘But the Chinaman is extremely
curious, he wants to know everything.’ Yes, but it is
the curiosity of the woman or the child which fastens
on trifles - not scientific curiosity, seeking after new
stimulus, new suggestions, new ideas.

The Chinaman betrays his repugnance to effort by a
phrase constantly on his lips, ‘man, man — slowly,
slowly,’ which is frequently translated into act by ‘do

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

the least possible.’ And to excuse the consequences
of putting into action such a maxim, he has another
expression always ready, *tcha pou to’ — ‘it’s not far
out’: if it is not perfection, it is near enough. This
is what any workman will say to you when he has
made a hopeless mess of a piece of work entrusted to
him. The torpor of his intellect has led him in the
same way to a general lack of precision: time does
not exist for him; to-morrow is as often the day after
to-morrow or later still. And if there is one thing
that one can never trust to a Chinaman, it is the read-
ing of a scientific instrument, a recording apparatus.
He cannot grasp the necessity of unwavering atten-
tion, strict ascertainment, mathematical exactitude.

The Chinaman attaches so little importance to the
natural means of exercising his activity that he regards
the loss of a limb or even of his sight with an indif-
ference that amazes the European in Asia. He does
not worry about his sores or his rheumatism as being
injuries which may reduce the functioning activity of
his organs; on the day when disease has robbed him
of strength, he will simply become a beggar.

There is one quality which has been greatly admired
in the Chinaman; I mean his patience. It is truly
without limit, but it has too great a resemblance to
inertia to be considered as a great title to glory. His
natural passivity is so great, his slowness to reaction
so marked, that his patience is not a virtue in the
same degree as in the active being, who hates losing
time which could be better employed.

Very often, when the Chinaman postpones the

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

moment for action to obtain, apparently, a more com-
plete result, it is only, at bottom, a manifestation of
his habitual apathy, and his repugnance to prompt
solutions, which will demand sustained effort and
unfaltering will. When, therefore, Chinese procras-
tination is attributed to calculation, that is a great
mistake; even when there is calculation, it is usually
mingled with the hereditary tendency of the race.

In considering what China formerly was and what
she is at the present day, in considering the astound-
ing pride which she displays in the most primitive
achievements, it seems, as a secondary cause, that her
failure - her mummification - cannot otherwise be
explained save in the following fashion : her statesmen,
her philosophers, her literati.^ must have exclaimed one
day: ‘We have reached, at the present time, the highest
civilization, we dominate the known world, we have
completed the greatest work ever conceived of. Enough
of war and struggle, let us now rest in peace and enjoy
all the wealth accumulated in this greatest of empires.
No more fighting without or within, no more com-
petition, not even in industry and commerce, no more
taxes: happiness smiling on all and for ever, in one
great family.’

China would then have desired to realize the un-
realizable. The consequences of such a decision, of
such a violation of the law of nature, could not be
otherwise than those observed so far in the course of
this study of the general situation of the Empire.

‘No more fighting,’ said the philosophers and the
lUerati\ ‘all the barbarians are pacified, and bow before

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

our intellectual supremacy. No more soldiers, these
creatures who are the symbol of ignorance and brutality.’
And the profession of arms was pronounced contemp-
tible, unworthy of an honest man.^ The Romans had
said cedant arma togae\ the Chinaman went further,
he declared that it was necessary to banish the means
of making war by suppressing all physical energy, or
at least branding it with contempt. The expression
*siao jen k'i ta' — ‘it is the nobody who has great
muscular strength’ - served to stigmatize bodily vig-
our, and debility was raised to honour, being supposed
to be the necessary accompaniment of vigorous brain.
Exertion, exercise, were forbidden, except to the vul-
gum pecuSy whose business was to feed and clothe this
aristocracy which was still material enough to be sub-
ject to corporeal necessities. And to show that his
lingers could never be set to the execution of any
menial task, the lettered man allowed his nails to grow
to an inordinate length ; this ugly thing was the symbol
to him of poetic inspiration, the genius of literatxore
and of all the virtues.

These philosophers and guides shut their eyes to
the fact that man lives amidst eternal combat, that no
people can escape this natural law; that if he does not
remain strong, and scorns to be drawn into the struggle,
he is condemned to physical and moral bankruptcy,
then to slavery and to submission to other more com-
bative nations. The old Chinese Empire has escaped
this fate only by its isolation, and the mutual jealousies
of the European nations.

^ Leangtze chang d pou che te hao jen.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Punishment has none the less followed close on the
fault committed.

Look around and see how lamentable has been the
failure of the Chinese ideal: production reduced in
every branch of cultivation, industry and commerce;
famines, civil wars, insecurity of property and life.
No real means of communication or of transport,
and a third of the adult population converted into
beasts of burden. As he has grown weaker, the China-
man has protected himself by forming most tyrannous
trades unions and associations; his individuality has
disappeared, and with it all initiative and creative
vigour. His natural affections have become changed;
his selfishness, already great and strengthened by the
special form given to the institution of the family,
has taken on proportions astounding to our race. He
was told that there must be no more struggle, no more
effort; then the human beast revealed itself in its
entirety. Heeding nothing but his instinct of self-
preservation and his personal enjoyment, he has pro-
claimed aloud his self-concentrated love, leaving to
die on the road his impoverished brother who sinks
exhausted, and abandoning to the caprice of flood and
to the fury of fire his other brother, without for a
moment thinking of spending a little of his energy
in preserving for them what he himself prizes so
highly.^

The dislike of exertion has bred cowardice and want
of discipline. The Chinaman, in ceasing to cultivate

^ Allusion to the absolute lack of solidarity existing in China, of which
1 have already spoken.

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

masculine virtues, becomes neurasthenic in physique
as in character, and is no longer able to display that
manifestation of energy which we call courage. Thus
we have the peasant abandoning his house to the thief,
instead of defending his property; the rich man allow-
ing himself to be robbed in a thousand ways, buying
the favour of bandits, submitting to all sorts of adminis-
trative tyrannies; we have the absence of all mutual
help, which is the supreme cowardice. People have
tried to excuse this disregard of the laws of humanity
by saying that it is for fear of judicial complications or
from religious fanaticism that the Chinaman acts thus.
But what sort of a nation is it where the individual is
afraid of carrying out the most sacred of duties, where
a generous action can be wrongly interpreted or even
punished.? What can we call this religious fanaticism,
this fear of going to meet destiny, of violating the
laws of the gods.? What can we think of the priest or
the governor of such a country, where so fatal an error
is not condemned? There is, however, an explanation
of such conduct, as we shall presently see.

Since inflexible moral discipline can belong only to
strong races, who are capable of real self-mastery and
of imposing upon themselves duties repugnant to
man’s natural tendencies, it has not been able to
maintain itself in the old empire, and obedience to
force alone has become the rule. How many times
have I seen among adult men the most reasonable
order violated, and the caprice of a moment taken as a
serious motive which should determine this or that
action. You will say that in our countries this also

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

occurs, but it happens much less frequently, and what
contempt does the Chinaman show for the opinion
of a superior whose rightness of judgment could not
be compared with his miserable little dwarf of an ideal
But in the empire the most insignificant of coolies
claims to be in every respect as good a judge as his
mandarin.

Little by little, drawn in spite of himself upon a
dangerous inclined plane, the Chinaman has come,
as a result of one fall after another, to have no longer
any ideal, or any noble aspiration towards a better
state. He has returned to the instincts of the first
ages; eating has become the greatest and most import-
ant act in his day. In greeting you, he says, ^Fa tsai
kia houai^ that is to say, ‘May you grow rich, and
may your belly increase.’ If you are his guest, after
the meal he will question you with 'Tche te fao moV
— ‘Have you eaten till you are swollen?’ This is what
he has come to.

When I consider that the Chinaman has been
declared again and again ad nauseam to be temperate,
it is clear he can have been thus described only by
persons who have never seen. him. Gluttony is the
rule for him, whenever he has means to satisfy his
appetite. He eats to the point of indigestion, sickness,
and chronic dilatation of the stomach. If he generally
appears temperate, it is from absolute necessity, because
he is poor, and his resources have a limited maximum,
as he never exercises forethought, or endeavours to
put his exertions to a better use. But if fortune should
turn him from a little artisan to a wealthy man, on

l86

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

that very day he will be anything but temperate. Ob-
serve the coolie who has for the moment a little money
at his disposal; he does not fail to enjoy it immediately
without care for the future. He goes to gorge himself
on fat and rice to congestion point.

Nothing is more common in China than to repair
an injury done to some one by paying him with a
dinner: many quarrels are ended thus, with the pros-
pect of gastronomic satisfaction.

The capacity of the Chinese stomach is astounding.
I have seen my porters taking a meal at eight o’clock
in the morning, and another at nine o’clock, and if I
was watching I soon caught them eating again at the
next inn we met. Their pay was good; they profited
by stuffing themselves with all kinds of victuals from
morning till night.

The Chinaman greatly admires a big eater, and
when he boasts of his domestic animals — his dog, for
instance - he will not say that it is a good dog, but
that it is houi tche^ that is to say, a good trencherman.
This expression is chiefly applied to his favourite
animal the pig, the dog being never the object of the
same attention. *

It is only in the old empire that a being is to be
found who is capable of giving his life for a sum of
money which will enable him during one month or
even less to feast at his heart’s content. This kind of
transaction is quite often seen in the case of a rich
man condemned to capital punishment, but anxious
to find a substitute. He therefore buys a beggar, and for
about 150 or 200 francs the beggar will die in his place.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

The concern about eating pursues the Chinaman
even to his tomb ; thus one of the first duties of filial
piety consists in carrying victuals at fixed periods to
the ancestor’s place of rest.

What now are we to think of all the accusations
brought against the Chinaman by the European, and
of the grave faults with which he is charged.? The
Chinaman is said to be disloyal, a liar, his bad faith is
flagrantly seen everywhere. Is this really true.? On
the contrary, the Chinaman has always seemed to me
to show respect for agreements and bargains, when
once he has entered into them. Though he cavils,
shuffles, seeks evasion as long as the negotiations are
taking place, though he does not express his inten-
tions clearly at first, though he irritates us with his
loopholes for escape, we ought not to forget that our
own conduct has led him to exaggerate certain bad
habits which belong to all races. In his political rela-
tions, there is nothing astonishing in seeing him use
the weapons of the weak, duplicity and falsehood;
or see him seek in procrastinations and ambiguous
answers an efficacious means of defence.

When you decide to ask from the Chinaman nothing
but economic concessions in which his interests will
be safeguarded, his conduct and his method change
completely, and you will never have to regret having
co-operated with him. All Europeans who have com-
mercial relations with Chinese will tell you with what
loyalty and scrupulous honesty they fulfil all their
engagements. If Europeans have also made contracts
with the administrative authorities, at no time will the

i88

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

latter try to keep them strictly to the letter of the
clauses which bind them.^

It is indeed for other reasons that we think we have
a right to judge the Chinaman severely: for his egoism,
the cruelty resulting from it, his corruption, and his
conceit.

His egoism is indeed profound, and incomprehen-
sible to us. But remember the many ways in which the
Chinaman has suffered and still suffers: flood, famine,
epidemics, which he knows neither how to prevent nor
how to fight; civil wars, chronic brigandage, general
insecurity of life and property. Exposed to every sur-
prise, never sure of the morrow, hardened to the sight
of terrible hecatombs by flood and famine, existence no
longer appears to him, as to us, the supreme good not
to be parted with. His ration of food is so moderate
that he has come to think that the number of those
sitting at table is always too large. The unhappy man
has also found out that the economic equilibrium of
his empire cannot be maintained if Death reaps less
liberally among the masses. His indifference to the
worst misfortunes has therefore gradually increased,
until it has become contempt for his own life and that of
others. It is poverty, the agonizing certainty that he
cannot be sure of the morrow, which has made him
selfish and cruel. Let us pity him, and not be too much
in a hurry to condemn him.

I have told of the tyranny which the in^^titution of the
family permits to him, but he rarely abuses his power,

^ Formerly this was always true. But why must these praiseworthy
customs be dying out to-day?

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O

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

except in certain behaviour towards his womenkind, a
behaviour which he considers correct.

Whenever a writer has commented on the egoism of
the Chinaman, his contempt for the lives of others, and
his severity towards the weaker sex, he has been careful
to establish a parallel with the kindness of his behaviour
to animals. The contrast is indeed striking. The
Chinaman is full of consideration for his cat, his pig,
and other interesting animals: he never treats his horse
roughly, nor so far forgets himself as to kick his dog —
as we are apt to do - an animal which nevertheless he
does not love. This behaviour is incomprehensible to
us until we reflect that domestic animals never enter
into competition with man in the struggle for life.

A further charge against the Chinaman is the inten-
sity of his hatreds and his love of vengeance. This fault
is connected with the same kind of feeling of which
we have just spoken, the vagaries of a conscience which
suffering has put out of tune. His mode of vengeance
is sometimes very strange, and the intensity of his
hatred goes to the extreme of sacrificing his own life
in order fully to attain his end.

The young wife hangs herself, in order to put the
justice of the mandarin in motion, and ruin her adoptive
family, and thus avenge herself for all the cruel treat-
ment she has endured. The man to whom you have
done some injury consigns you to the magistrate by
coming and hanging himself at your gate, thus making
sure of his vengeance. Another will come and die in
your field, or will bring there some beggar’s corpse,
with the conviction that the myrmidons of the yamen

190

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

will repay you a hundredfold the wrong you have done
to him. He knows his people, and is confident that he
can thus glut his spite better than if he stabbed you
with a knife.

As for the accusation of corruption brought against
the Chinese administration, it is no doubt true; but if
one reflects that the Chinese official is paid a ridiculous
wage insufficient to keep him from dying of hunger,
one will be less eager to condemn what is called his
chronic venality. This national blunder, refusing to
recognize financial needs, is derived doubtless from the
conception of the family; the mandarin, being the father
of the people, must not be openly paid a wage by his
children, but should rather receive voluntary contri-
butions inspired by filial piety.

On the day when China admits her mistake, and
establishes a budget on the European model, corrup-
tion will gradually disappear, venality ceasing to be a
vital necessity.

Administrative corruption has brought into being a
curious mode of defence. In order to enjoy compara-
tive tranquillity, rich or well-to-do people are accus-
tomed to ensure themselves against surprises by paying
an annual subscription ‘for peace’ to the officials of the
law courts. The amount of the subscription naturally
varies according to the wealth of the subscribers.

There are a number of by-words or sayings to char-
acterize the rapacity of the law officials: (i) ‘It does not
matter whether you are right or not; if you have no
money, you are wrong.’ (2) ‘The sight of money to a
law-officer is like the sight of blood to a fly.’ And the

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

official sums up his hopes in the saying, ‘There is no
dog so thin that you cannot scrape a little fat off him.’

I have yet to speak of Chinese conceit; it is immeas-
urable. His empire represents the only civilization in
the world, it alone is glorious. We are still to-day to
the Chinaman, tsao fan^ barbarians in revolt against the
Son of Heaven - craftsmen who can make rifles, can-
non and other machines; we are still always in their
eyes poor, ignorant, pretentious wretches, incapable of
understanding and cultivating literature. Though in
the ports or amongst a few mandarins who have been
to Europe or the United States, you may meet disillu-
sioned Chinamen, with their minds opened to less
mistaken views about us, the opinion which I have just
expressed is exactly the idea which is held regarding us
throughout the Celestial Empire.

China doubtless has a right to the admiration of other
nations for the great work which she achieved in build-
ing up and preserving, through so many centuries, the
vastest kingdom known. She also deserves our praise
for some of her literary and philosophic productions,
not forgetting her fine moral code ; in art she has real-
ized marvels, before which the known world bows, in
spite of the frequent lack of originality. Therefore her
part in the development and enfranchisement of man-
kind from primitive darkness is manifestly important,
and deserves full recognition. But it is difficult for the
European to subscribe wholly to the pretensions of the
Chinaman, so little justified as they often are. I have
told what he thinks of our knowledge generally, and of
the multifarious creations of European genius, affecting

192

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

to place them on a level with his most primitive inven-
tions. Just as the mandarin saw only a difference in
size between a steam-launch and a junk, so the wheel-
barrow coolie will carefully refrain from enthusiasm at
the sight of a locomotive : it is certainly bigger than his
wheelbarrow, and can drag other carriages; it is made
of iron instead of wood; its wheels are larger; but he
sees nothing more in it. How the enormous difficulty
of disciplining steam had been overcome is naturally
incomprehensible to his intelligence, and even to that
of the mandarin, so long as he is ignorant of physical
science. In short, our superiority in the means of trans-
port will be summed up as the employment of larger
carriages than those of the Chinaman : as for him, he
can get the same result by employing a larger number
of wheelbarrows and porters. The mechanical crane,
raising thousands of tons of rice in a few hours, pro-
vokes the remark that he can do the same by setting to
work the required number of coolies.

The question of the time ratio of a given piece of
work is still for him a negligible matter. Though the
business man of Canton or Shanghai has changed his
opinion on this subject, he is an infinitely small number :
nevertheless, his new way of thinking has passed the
limits of these towns, and is gaining the interior little
by little, particularly along the great waterways. But
elsewhere, it is quite otherwise.

When, living in China, you entrust to your servants
some improved implement to make their work easier, -
an implement which they quickly learn how to use, -
you may be certain that they will not avail themselves

193

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

of it unless you are there to watch them; they will go
on working with their primitive tool.

Yes, the Chinaman denies the possibility of our
having found out anything better than he: his vast
intelligence has embraced everything, and the brilliant
inventions of which we are so proud either have no
value in his eyes, or are pirated from the creations of his
ancestors. Yes, his conceit is immeasurable! And the
most wretched of coolies or beggars, pulling his inde-
scribable rags and tatters round his itch-tortured body,
will cry his ngo han tze with the same pride as the
Roman, who, draping himself in his toga, flung his
vaunt of civis romanus sum to the echoes of the world.

The Chinaman then holds his head very high; and,
having regard to the value of his achievements, his con-
descension is without limit. But is that to say that he
will indefinitely remain incapable of comprehending the
achievements of others, that he will systematically shut
his ears to all our counsels, and close his eyes to the
eloquent object-lessons which he is receiving.? No; for
though he does not grasp, as I have thus explained, the
full bearing of our scientific study and the full useful-
ness of our inventions, together with their social conse-
quences, nevertheless in some parts of the empire he
is beginning to awake to realities and to recognize
certain new conditions in human existence; since the
last great political events, he has really begun to shake
off his torpor.

At Szechwan, where the population is of gentler
character, and less systematically opposed to the
foreigner, some of our more practical inventions are

194

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

receiving a warm welcome by the people. And our
ideas will little by little, particularly by means of the
schools, penetrate, if not to the masses, at any rate to
the more intelligent of the young people. But it must
not be forgotten that the Chinese are an old nation, who
have no longer any ideal or thought of the future, whose
desire is for repose, whose whole existence for centuries
has been nothing but a meditation on death. In the
midst of the ruins which they have allowed to accumu-
late, their attention fixed on the tomb, they regard the
coffin as the most precious gift, the most delicate atten-
tion, to offer to a parent. But how can the Chinaman
be roused, and snatched from his thousand-year
lethargy.? We must come in touch with him, and try
to understand him, and then teach him our sciences
gradually, with the precautions necessitated by his old
ideas and his hereditary tendencies, so alien to the new
ideas with which we desire to impregnate him. And
while instructing him, we must take special pains to
prove to him by examples and practical applications,
that he has nothing to lose but everything to gain, on
the contrary, by listening to us. Once you have over-
come his conceited scepticism, he will have confidence
in you, and thereafter follow you blindly.

His intelligence, always quick and capable of certain
effort, prepares him quite naturally, better than other
peoples, to receive the good seed, and cause it to fruc-
tify. If, fatigued with so long an existence, he is con-
demned to a lack of creative impulse, what does that
matter.? A younger race has lifted humanity out of the
rut where it had been so long enmeshed; she is flying

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

with outstretched wings towards the most astounding,
the most unsuspected triumphs. Having made straight
the ways, prepared the fruitful ground, with all the
means of execution, the other races have only to listen
to her invitation, and follow her example; success is
certain. And the Chinaman is, amongst these nations,
the one who can most profit from the lessons learned.
Who knows if he will not find in the science of the
barbarians across the ocean the water of life, which,
issuing from the fountain of Youth, may bring him a
rejuvenation? In making him conscious of his faults
and errors, as we have been doing in his own interest,
not for the pleasure of criticism, in aiding him with our
counsel, and our instruction, we are leading him towards
the realization of this beautiful dream. But if we cannot
reach this height, it will always be easy for us, by mak-
ing known to the Chinaman the rational way of mak-
ing the most of the wealth in his country, to bring a
little joy and happiness to his empire, where so much
poverty and suffering are openly displayed.

This study would be incomplete if I said nothing
about the religious standpoint of the Chinaman. It is
that of an old man, whose observation of life around
him has convinced him of its nothingness, and des-
troyed his faith in what others call the immortal beliefs
of all humanity. Yes, he believes no longer in the gods :
after having invoked them so long in vain, he has lost
faith in them. He has found them too capricious, too
changeable, chastising at random, possessing less sense
of justice than himself. He is thus freed from the
tyranny of his gods, and has even been bold enough

196

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

to reduce them to the same level as simple human
beings, whom they so much resemble. Having cata-
logued them, and arranged them in their proper grades,
he signified to them that if they played fair with him,
certain favours would be afforded them ; give and take.
And now, when he is satisfied with their intervention,
he rewards them by elevating them in rank; but he
knows also how to punish them by lowering their place
on the hierarchic chart the number of grades in propor-
tion to the extent of the fault they have committed.
He chastises them even more smartly when they have
abused his patience, have continued deaf to his prayers,
in time of drought, for instance. If the rain delays too
long, the son of Han burns no more incense, but, seeing
red, in the face of such ingratitude, he whips the god
responsible, and -oh, shame for this poor god 1- it is some-
times even a woman who applies the correction; some-
times they go so far as to throw the god into the river.

All this will appear very strange to European
believers; it is, however, the truth. The Chinaman is
the most sceptical of sceptics, and no one knows better
than he how to fit his god to the necessities of his social
and economic life. After having for long held his gods
in terrible fear, he became gradually reassured by
remarking how many celestial favours were bestowed
on the wicked, and on the tyrannical mandarin.
Then one day he conceded to his gods only a vague
supremacy, whose extent would vary vdth the value ol
the protection they afforded; this was the point of
departure for the creation of the hierarchy of which 1
have just spoken. Consequently the degree of power

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

assigned to these gods reacted to the vicissitudes of the
Chinaman’s economic or political life. If there came
about a decline in the prosperity of a town at any given
time, the protecting divinity was speedily declared to
be incapable and below the level of his task, and thrown
aside to be replaced by another; if the Imperial troops
launched against the Western barbarians underwent
cruel defeats, instantly the god of war, who had been
relegated to the lowest rung of the hierarchy, was put
up many degrees, and recovered a lustre of which he
had long been deprived.^ I should not be at all sur-
prised if recent political events have not given a new
and considerable leap-up to this god, placing him per-
haps in the same rank as the god of letters.

In certain desperate situations, when the Chinaman
feels himself totally abandoned by the celestial powers,
he thinks out strange combinations to get rid of his bad
fortune, the scourge which is mercilessly pursuing him.
Thus two years ago, in a certain central province, a
terrible cholera epidemic was ravaging a district. All
the joss-sticks burned, all the crackers pulled, all the
dragons promenaded through the streets of the capital
in solemn procession having done nothing for the cessa-
tion of the scourge, the mandarinal authorities and the
notabilities met together and after consultation declared
that the year (it was in March) had begun badly, that
it would be ill-omened according to all prevision during
its twelve moons, and that only one means offered for
escape from the present calamity and future calamities,

^ In this case it is the long-neglected god whom, under the pressure of
unsuspected distress, they put up again to invoke.

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

and that was to begin the year again. And the festivi-
ties of a fresh New Year’s Day were decreed : the series
of customary celebrations was set in full swing, and as
the epidemic, which had already long been raging, was
at the period of decline, its fairly rapid disappearance,
starting about the time when the authorities put their
discovery into practice, was hailed as the result of this
luminous idea. How these poor protecting deities were
mocked at, and how inferior were their intelligence and
sagacity to that of men!

The Chinaman, except in crises like these, lives none
the less on good terms with the deity. He is a wise
man who repeats often enough a prudent ‘Who knows.?’
Therefore he continues to burn incense to his god, to
implore his aid, holding himself free to take vengeance
on the god for his failures and misfortunes. But where
the old sceptic never fails to betray himself, is when
praying as a suppliant, bringing his tribute and his
offerings, he has the audacity to fool the god of his
preference shamelessly, by making him whistle for his
money, to use a vulgar phrase, - that is to say, by paying
him with sham bars of gold and silver, made out of
cheap coloured paper, yellow or white.

Is this sceptical Chinaman superstitious? Yes, ex-
tremely so, though the two terms seem to contradict
each other. The reason is that, being quite ignorant of
science, he has never been able to shake himself free
from the whole train of queer explanat’ions of natural
phenomena, bequeathed him by his ancestors; and the
mandarin, as much as the peasant and coolie, is a prey
to the same terror of the mysterious unknown. The

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

ancestral cult, the fear of displeasing the sienjen (fore-
fathers), who make your misfortune or your prosperity,
has contributed powerfully to develop this old leaven
of superstition, common to all humanity. Thus, the
corpse is the object of a thousand attentions, and some
of its aspects are very much feared, when, for example,
there is the phenomenon of pou cheou che^ that is to say,
when the body remains flexible after death, and does
not assume the normal rigidity. That is a very bad
omen; the dead demands companions in his tomb;
therefore incessant prayers then begin and continue.
A most trifling occurrence, a pure chance, may have
immediate terrible consequences. Suppose a cat were
to walk across the corpse, and startle it, as the Chinese
say; the shock to the soul of the deceased will be so
great, he will feel such resentment that a like profana-
tion could have been allowed, that he will return to
earth to revenge himself on one of the family, he will
return to kill, houi cha (houiy return; cha, kill).

For fear of displeasing the dead, the corpse is kept
in the house for an indefinite time, and the diviner is
paid a large sum to find him a good place of interment,
a corner of the long hsiiy — the cave which is the dwell-
ing-place of the Dragon.

If any misfortune falls upon the family after a first
burial, the survivors have no doubt that they have made
an error in the choice of the burial-place, and that the
only chance of seeing better days is to transport else-
where the remains of the dead!

Superstition also enters into the various acts of
ordinary life, and more than that it bears a part in

200

THE CHINESE CHARACTER

official customs. A journey is not undertaken, a busi-
ness transaction arranged, a daughter married, without
the intervention of a thousand strange influences. For
success in any enterprise whatever the Chinese are
much more concerned with finding the vein of the
Dragon, the long me^ than with the special qualifications
of the experts. If a mine, for instance, is in question,
it is not the experience of the geologist which matters
(the Chinaman knows nothing of geology), nor that of
people with a practical knowledge of this kind of work,
but the caprice of the sorcerer who is discovering the
dwelling-place of this Dragon. And if a seam gives
out, it is because the god has moved house, and gone
elsewhere. The long me can also pass over your field
or over the boundary into your neighbour’s field; in
that case there will be quarrels, endless lawsuits to
determine who has a positive right to the precious vein,
source of all good fortune and all success.

The cultivated class does not escape this curious
servitude: thus the high mandarin, who is going to
take charge of a prefecture or province, will not enter
on his official duties except on a lucky day, like the
Romans : he will never receive the seals on a day of ill
omen : misfortune would not fail to fall on him during
the entire duration of his official term. The magistrate
sits only at auspicious times.

Not only are there days which are gravely preju-
dicial, but also certain objects and word^; it is usual in
China to abstain from pronouncing words supposed to
be unlucky.

On the other hand, the Chinese employ all kinds of

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

methods to invoke good fortune; they write on their
doors, for instance, 'kai men ta ki,’ - ‘when the door is
opened, happiness is found.’ I should never be done if
I enumerated all the puerilities, in constant use, in-
vented so as to enjoy the whole series of earthly delights.

The Chinese almost always attach a superstitious
significance to the most common and easily explained
phenomena or accident. I will take as example one of
the misfortunes the Chinaman feels very deeply, — the
death of his silkworms. They die because he is very
negligent and knows nothing of their laws of health,
and is incapable of dealing with the epidemics which
attack them. But that is not his opinion: they die
because someone is dead in the house or near by, —
because they have smelt a fishy smell, - because a visi-
tor who has just seen a serpent or a human corpse has
looked at them. Everything that recalls death has a
disastrous influence on silkworms; therefore the China-
man during the period of their growth abstains from
praying for his ancestors or being present at a funeral.

I will not further insist on these examples of Chinese
superstition, general in all classes of society and not
confined, as with us, to certain classes of the population,
who are still ignorant, but who are daily freeing them-
selves more and more from strange practices of this
sort. In the Celestial Empire these practices will en-
dure as long as the present system of instruction and
upbringing persists: doubtless for a long time yet,
especially among the masses, so tenacious is the chain
which binds a people, particularly a people like the
Chinese, to its ancestral conceptions.

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THE CHINESE CHARACTER

I pause: happy if I have been able to give a glimpse
of the real causes of the weakness of the Great Empire,
and the reasons for her stagnation. As to her prospects
of rejuvenation, I have just said what they are, and by
what means they can be realized. Above all, let us not
forget this, - of vital importance for us, and a possible
guarantee for the future : by the Chinaman nothing is
held in more respect than knowledge; it is his real
religion, next to the worship rendered to his ancestors.
Therefore the master, the teacher, represents in
Chinese society the greatest and least disputed moral
authority. And this authority, with its vastly extended
influence, will be all the more fruitful when the profes-
sor addresses himself to the ruling class of the lettered,
the one class which enjoys power and respect in the
empire. It is therefore a matter of great importance
that the white race alone should give scientific educa-
tion to the Chinaman, regaining by a great civilizing
achievement the military prestige which it has recently
lost. And the moment for action has come: recent
events have proved to a large number of mandarins,
placed in conditions favourable to observation, the
absolute necessity of becoming acquainted with our
science, and of cultivating other studies than letters and
philosophy. But what must be prevented at any cost is
that a people having any interest whatever in develop-
ing warlike sentiment in the Chinese should become
their instructors in science, and take advantage of the
ascendency which is given by this highly respected r6le
in order to direct their future efforts towards war.

What is necessary also is to cease to menace the

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Chinaman, constantly, with our cannons and our fleets,
-to cease to employ violent means; what is needed
is to teach him our sciences so that his industries may
be developed, his resources and his well-being increased
and the old nation will remain ‘the great Peace lover.’
Owing to the innate respect which this people has
always shown to the creators of its civilization, its
empire has until now remained intact.

The Chinaman believed in the authority of his
philosophers, and in the authority of the chief of the
social unity, the houang ti^ the Son of Heaven, who
symbolized in his eyes the paternal supremacy, sprung
from the grouping of all families, magnified without
limit until it reached celestial apotheosis. This belief
was his safeguard, and prevented the collapse of a
kingdom in which so many causes united to bring
about its rapid and fatal disintegration.

This fetish, this houang ti, placed so high by tradi-
tion and religion, has maintained in their duty many
sons who know little of each other, and are bound
together by such loose ties that they seem to be uncon-
scious of the most primitive form of human solidarity.

But at the present day the radiance of the fetish
dazzles fewer eyes, and certain events threaten to
shake the beliefs and the ancient traditions of the
Chinaman. He asks to be enlightened; I have just
indicated the means of directing him. Knowing his
agelong inclinations, nothing should be easier, if one
sets about it wisely, than to banish for ever certain
appalling dangers in a future which cannot be far
distant. Let us then be wise in good time 1

204

CHAPTER XIII

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF CHINA’S
ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS
AND HER HISTORIC EVOLUTION

T he facts which I am about to set forth are the
result of twenty years of observation, made on the
spot, in the Far East, in the North as well as in the
South, in the West as well as in the East of immense
China.

Over and above long sojourns in certain regions of
China such as Yunnan, Shansi, and especially Szech-
wan, I spent some years travelling over the roads in
the plain and over the mountain paths, at the slow
pace of a caravan, thus covering a total distance of not
less than 12,500 miles.

On these roads every day thousands of these men
of the yellow or Mongol race, as is supposed, were
around me, exposing their faces to my full scrutiny.

In the fertile plains, moreover, in the midst of great
cities like Chengtufu, Hankow, Tai Youan, Tien-
tsin, Canton, etc., there were dense moving masses of
people, impossible to number, rambling in all direc-
tions, slowly, very slowly, so rarely in a hurry, thus
lending themselves entirely to my observation.

From this long period of study, elucidated by
numerous measurements of which the School of
Anthropology has received the firstfruits, some essen-
tial and undeniable facts clearly emerge.

They are far, however, from agreeing with the data
of orthodox anthropology, especially that which deals

205 P

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

with the classification of races, divided and multiplied
to the extent of defeating its own object.

The broad and very demonstrable synthesis which
I have effected - a synthesis resulting from an enor-
mous mass of observations and comparisons - will
clash with many opinions, but nothing can prevail
against facts, realities.

What, then, are these main facts which I have been
able to disengage from my observations.?

They can be summed up in a few words.

1. There exist all over China, in the coastal pro-
vinces as in the Thibetan borders, in the basin of the
Yang-Tse as in that of the Yellow River, - there exist, I
say, two clearly distinguishable human types, varying
at once in size, colour of skin, structure of face, form
of nose, etc. : the one is of white race, and frequently of
Semitic or Assyrian type; the other is frankly negroid.

2. Between these two extreme types, clearly estab-
lished in their somatic limits, it is impossible to
constitute one or more biological units, yellows or
browns, because of the lack of a group of common
characteristics which would definitely isolate such
units from the black and white types.

Looked at from another point of view, if one studies
Chinese civilization in detail in the light of anthro-
pology, as I have been able to do, one cannot fail to
notice that social and economic facts agree clearly
with biological facts to demonstrate the respective
influences of the two prototypes, Aryan and negroid;
two social and religious forms are easily recognizable,
though more or less blended, as in India.

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

It is needless to add that the white element definitely
predominated during the course of the centuries,
notwithstanding its numerical inferiority. This it is
which has allowed the development of the civilization
called Chinese, but whose original source could not
be located in the valley of the Yellow River, but most
decidedly in Western Asia.

Tradition, history and anthropology (I refer to the
recent studies I made in Shansi) combine to show that
white races, either Aryan or Semitic, and under
different names, colonized the valley of the Wei, then
that of the Yellow River, thus laying the foundation of
the Chinese Empire.

Then, both before and after the Christian era, these
same races ceased not to penetrate that empire, peace-
fully or by force, both by land and by sea, in every epoch.

By land at once by the south-west via Burmah and
Yunnan; by the west, via Turkestan; by the north,
via Mongolia and Siberia.

Pacific conquests: as, for example, that brilliant
Greco-Buddhist civilization, which from Bactria and
the Indus Valley invaded and transformed China, as
also Indo-China, and transformed them in art and
science as well as in religion.

Chinese art was already impregnated with Assyro-
Babylonian art before the Christian era.

Or, later, Arab influence, and above all the action of
conquerors called Mongols, but in reality Turks who
had come under Iranian influence, and who brought
to China all that proved most durable in Greco-
Roman and Persian civilization.

207

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

But a constant and inevitable extinguisher occurred
in the fatal reaction of a considerable mass of negroids
and inferior half-breeds, which formed the majority
of the Chinese population. This is doubtless the cause
of so many eclipses in the evolution of the Chinese;
in particular, the cause of those long periods of
crystallization which succeeded each other in the
course of centuries, and the last of which is connected
with the Manchu period.

MORPHOLOGICAL FEATURES

I Started my career in China in 1901, in the pro-
vince of Szechwan on the High Yangtse, or Blue River,
a province as large as France, and the richest in China.

It is bordered on the west by Thibet, and on the
north by the Tsao Ti, or Grassland (steppe), the
sources of the Hoang-ho, or Yellow River.

I lived some years in Chengtufu, the capital, a city
containing with its suburbs more than a million
inhabitants, and situated in the midst of a plain
swarming with people (6 million souls).

Chengtufu is within immediate reach of a con-
siderable mountain chain inhabited by numerous
tribes of Mantsi, that is to say, barbarians, for so
the Chinese designate all foreign races, including those
of Europe.

Szechwan being a rich country with a temperate
climate has not failed to excite the cupidity of every
conqueror who in the course of history dominated
China either wholly or in part, both before and after
the Christian era.

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Szechwan also commands the routes to Burmah and
India. It is even certain that China received her first
civilization by this route, at the same time as her chief
cereal, {ta meitst) rice. This ancient way served at
once for migration and commerce; long before the
Christian era it extended by way of India as far as
Persia and the valley of the Oxus.

Szechwan thus saw other strangers besides armed
invaders; very numerous were the migratory move-
ments from poorer neighbouring regions to this land
of promise, to pei tni^ or white rice. These movements
were even ordered frequently by emperors in the
course of the struggles in which so often the North of
China came to grips with the South.

In particular, in the sixteenth century, a certain
General, continuing the work of the hordes of Kubla
Khan, exterminated, it is said, more than half of the
population, so that the Emperor was obliged to order
a levy en masse of families in Central and Eastern
China to repopulate the unhappy Szechwan.

As, on the other hand, more advanced groups from
the coast belt, Cantonese and Fo-Kienese, have always
been largely represented at Szechwan, in the capacity
of big merchants, manufacturers and bankers, it is
permissible to conclude that this vast province of 40
millions of people is inhabited by a veritable con-
glomeration of Chinese peoples, and thus represents
from an ethnical point of view almost the whole
empire, and forms a compendiiun of it.

And this is not all. The broad mountainous bar-
rier which shuts in Szechwan on the north and the

209

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

west, including the Thibetan Marches, is the home
of numerous tribes more or less grouped in small
peoples, who are called Lolos, Sifans, No Su, Miaotsi
or Thibetans.

I thus found in Szechwan a field of action as exten-
sive as it was varied, especially when I could travel
and wander afar in plain and mountain. But what I
ought to make clear in the first place is the surprise
I felt when I began to go up the valley of the Blue
River in having to bow to the evidence that all these
Chinamen, who were incessantly moving in and out
of my field of vision, were often very different from
one another. Above all I was greatly astonished not
to see only yellow men with the almond eye, but to
observe, on the contrary, an appreciable number of
people whose skin was truly white and even rosy,
and whose eye was scarcely oblique at all and often
horizontal.

Later, I was obliged to form the following con-
clusions: (i) There were not in the different social
classes only men with broad faces and prominent
cheek-bones, as the geographers write, with broad
nose and more or less definitely prognathous; on
the contrary. (2) Every one was not smooth-skinned,
far from it. (3) There were certain individuals of tall
stature, nearly 6 feet high, long-headed, thin-nosed,
white-skinned and bearded, by the side of other types
really small, averaging 5 feet in height, with very dark
skin, broad face, flattened nose often with wide nostrils.
This latter type, which I named the ‘little race,’ was
always to be found at the foot of the social ladder

210

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

among the coolies, in the professions despised by
Chinamen.

One day I set out for the mountains of the West,
towards Ta Liang Shan, or the Great White Mountains ;
there I met the Lolo and the Sifan : a human type of
great stature, often leptorrhine (nose thin and arched),
constituting the dominant element, the aristocracy of the
tribes. They are called ‘Black Bones’ amongst the Lolos.

But I met also the very small specimens mentioned
before, with features even coarser than those on the
plain of Chengtufu, very platyrrhine (nose wide and
flattened) and very dark-skinned. Naturally also I
noticed some yellow men with the Mongolian eye;
but many with a very variable shade of skin, and
with the eye-slits of an ill-defined form.

The curious small-sized platyrrhine type presented
itself in its completeness in these mountains, and
isolated itself from other groups by a facial appear-
ance which I considered as its true ethnic mark - that
of a negroid with the hair sometimes woolly, broad
face and prominent cheek-bones; these men were
slaves to the ‘Black Bones,’ that is to say, the aristocracy
of the Lolo tribes and also the Sifan tribes.

And it must not be forgotten that we are here in
the middle of Far West China on the Thibetan bor-
ders, 1,875 ™iles, as the crow flies, from the Chinese
seas, 2,500 miles from the Philippines or Borneo on
the east, more than 1,250 miles fr^m the Indian
Ocean, south, and more from the Malay Peninsula;
that is to say, the regions where one would until now
have localized the negro.

2LI

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

After Szechwan I penetrated into Yunnan and also
Thibet, that enormous eastern mountain chain with
deep valleys of wild beauty, unequalled in the world.

In this Thibetan mountain region, in particular
in the valley of the Yalung, I came again upon the
fine Aryan or Assyroid type of great stature, often
with features of remarkable refinement.

I remarked also the negroid of small size forming
a strange contrast in these isolated mountains to the
handsome physique of the white racial type.

Between these two types thus defined, there was
naturally evolved in the social framework of the tribe
a yellow group, more numerous than the Aryan group
or the negrito nucleus.

In the interval I made observations the whole
length of the immense valley of the Yang-Tse, up and
down which I travelled thousands of miles; also in
the South at Hong-Kong and Canton, which, like
Shanghai, Hankow and Tien-tsin, constitute mar-
vellous ethnic observatories.

On my last journey I set foot in Northern China,
of which I had only vague knowledge, and settled in
Shansi, that is to say in the very centre of that enor-
mous territory — that geographical unit — which ex-
tends from the Gulf of Pe-chi-li to Russian Turkestan.
This great province of Shansi, bounded on the north
by Mongolia and on the south by the Yellow River,
possesses the very important distinction of being situ-
ated on the route of the great movements of peoples
from West to East and vice versa, or from North to
South, during the whole course of history, before

3.12

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

and after the Christian era. Shansi is on the high road
trodden by the incessant flow of migrations and ol
invasions which, by way of Siberia and Turkestan
and Mongolia, have interrupted the evolution of the
Chinese people since the most remote times. Add to
this the continuous and penetrating action of India,
which by its art, science, and religions. Buddhism in
particular, completed the work of the ancient Iranian
or Semitic civilizations, with which the Chinese are so
impregnated.

But who were these invaders and of what race? For
centuries the Chinese chroniclers have not ceased to
tell of them, so greatly has their country suffered from
them. But it required a learned Jesuit, Father Wieger,
to extract from these confused Annals of Empire some
information the interpretation of which may be ol
interest.

Thus we learn that in a.d. 316 the Hiong Nou,
that is to say the Huns or Turks, shattered the empire
of Tsin, and forced the Son of Heaven to transfer his
capital to the Blue River at Nankin. But how did
these terrible nomads, whose habitat had been Mon-
golia, find themselves in a position to oust the Emperor
1 ,000 miles to the south, — that is to say from the banks
of the Yellow River to those of the Blue River? Be-
cause, a long time since, Huns had conquered the Nor-
thern provinces, and were solidly entrenched in Shensi
and Shansi, in the historic valley of the Hoang-ho.

But to what race did these Huns belong? Were
they not members of the yellow race? The Annals
will answer the question.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

A General of the name of Cheu Min, desiring to free
Shansi from the lordship of the Huns, gave orders
secretly to massacre them all: 200,000 were put to the
sword (a.d. 350); the massacre was so pitiless, the
Annals add, that even bearded Chinese were also killed
because mistaken for Huns.

Then they were not Yellows, these Huns with long
beards and blue eyes, according to some Chinese
chroniclers, who occupied Shansi for some centuries.
But can they to-day have totally disappeared? Should
I not have been able to meet with them again in the
province, in this great central valley of the Hoang-
ho, especially as in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies of our era, their race was still mistress of China
(the Mongol Dynasty of the Tuan).

The problem was of great interest.

Now I was able immediately to discover, making
my way along the roads and pathways of Shansi, in
the valleys as well as in the mountains, that the Aryan
and other types of the white race, particularly the
Assyrian, not only passed this way in conquering
hordes, but, more than that, occupied the soil for
centuries, and still occupy it to-day.

In the country, in short, in the approaches to the
villages, my astonishment was great to meet peasants
of tall stature, white skin, rosy face, thin and arched
nose, and even blue eyes, having not a single char-
acteristic of the classic type called Mongol, of small
stature, yellow skin, almond eyes, broad flattened nose.
This tall Chinese peasant of Caucasian type was not
new to me; I had noticed him in Central and Western

214

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

China, but never in such compact groups, forming
indeed the dominant mass of the population, more or
less mixed with a little negroid race spread over the
whole territory of the old Empire as in India - an
observation of great importance.

In fact, if we compare the ethnical constitution of
India with that of China, — the physical characteristics
of the races which inhabit it, - one cannot help being
struck with the likeness between them, in spite of some
dominant features.

A fact not less important is that after having for
many years made observation of millions of individual
Chinese, I have tended to recognize only these two
types clearly differentiated from the mass, - the Aryan
or Semitic type and the negroid, usually of small
stature.

As for the ‘yellow’ race, I have no doubt that it is a
hybrid of whites and blacks perpetuated through
centuries or rather millenniums: hence the marked
polymorphism and variety of colour now existing.

But when one considers the biological value, the
psychic potentiality of the two racial prototypes and
their cross-breeds, one does not hesitate to decide that
the Aryan or the Semite was the real creator of the
old civilizations as well as that of the present day.
The great empires of history owe their foundations to
him, even the Chinese Empire in which the fecund
and organizing element is still easily recognizable by
him who has eyes to see. The same is true of Japan,
where certain characteristics of the white race can be
clearly discerned amongst the upper classes.

215

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Moreover, before as well as after the Christian era,
the white races of Western and Central Asia have not
ceased to penetrate China either peacefully or in war,
as much by land as by sea, in every epoch.

How many times has the unhappy Chinese Empire
been wrecked and dismembered by the assaults of the
white race, - Indo-Scythians, Sarmatians, Huns, On-
Uighurs or Turks! All, doubtless, of the Iranian or
Semitic stock, or rather a mixture of both.

No longer is it possible to write seriously, as did a
certain recent author in a work on Asia, that the
Turk, the Tellovo^ it appears, has turned white in his
march towards the west far from the Mongol steppe,
and that the influence of time and environment has
transformed his ugly primitive face to that of a pure
Iranian or Mediterranean.

But why do historians find it necessary to limit
themselves so often to recopying the same statements
and adopt them as so many ‘revealed truths.’ A his-
torian of Asia, moreover, cannot do useful work if he
has no knowledge of anthropology. The linguist hav-
ing declared that the Turk belongs to the yellow race,
the historian is content to write down this opinion,
when it would have been so easy of verification or
refutation. Linguists and historians should cease to
confuse language and race.

I have seen present-day Mongols from Mongolia.
Well, do not imagine that they constitute a very
distinct racial type according to and conforming to
the classic model. On the contrary, the different types
are numerous, and amongst them you can isolate only

216

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

two; one of small stature, dumpy and thick-set, of
yellow or brown skin, broad face, nose more or less
flattened, eye more or less oblique or even horizontal;
the other, tall, long or oval face, thin nose arched or
otherwise, often with white or pale yellow skin.

The same can be said of the Manchu, certainly,
brother of the race, or rather of the complex of races.

Besides, in contact with the present Mongols, on
the water-shed of the Altai as well as in the mountain
range of Tian Shan, you will still find to-day the
Kirei, or Kirghiz, a Kirghiz mussulman tribe, of white
race, in the act of driving back these Mongols to the
east.

The Russian from the high valley of the Irtish, the
Obi and the Yenisei or from the Baikal region, is exer-
cising the same thrust towards the east and the south.

In the midst of Kansu, west of the capital Lanchow,
you will find a grouping of about 10,000 individuals,
with fine long beards, white skin, and tall stature,
speaking old Turkish.

There are the same groupings much more num-
erous in the valley of the Tarim, in Chinese Turkestan.

I need not repeat what I said of Shansi.

Briefly, the white races, ancient and those of the
present day, pure and hybrid, have not ceased to
dominate Asia. And those whose ancestors sometimes
invaded and occupied China still remain there, espe-
cially in the North; I have just explained this, thus
adding confirmation and explanation to history.

Do you still remember the great deeds of the On-
Uighurs, those Turks so impregnated with Greco-

217

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Iranian culture, authors of all the very ancient inscrip-
tions found from one end of Mongolia to the other?

Towards the third century before Christ, their
tribes began to migrate, and conquered the whole
of Central Asia, including Southern Siberia. These
famous warriors, according to the Chinese Annals,
had often fair hair and blue eyes. It was the Nes-
torians who initiated them in Hellenic culture.

The English geographer Carruthers (Unknown
Mongolia^ 1914) describes the stone statues which
stand everywhere in Siberia round the kurgans or
tumvili set up by the On-Uighurs. These monoliths
form a landmark in the immense region which stretches
from the valley of the Yenisei to Southern Russia.

‘We noticed,’ says Carruthers, ‘some remarkable
effigies with striking facial features. We often saw
the strong features of a warrior, a type we amused
ourselves by likening to a Colonel of the British
Army, by reason of his well-groomed moustache and
general military appearance.’

But there is more still : the great Russian archaeolo-
gist Adrianoff, who has spent a lifetime in excavating
these kurgans^ found in the high valley of the Yenisei
skulls and masks of beaten gold, representing remark-
ably Aryan features. He has also established that this
race had the custom of burying with the corpse all
that it possessed - wives, slaves, horses, objects of
current use, of which some were in bronze, gold, or
silver, or in the case of tools, in iron: graves of chiefs,
no doubt.

But does not such a custom remind us of Egypt and

2I8

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

of the aborigines of Persia and Mesopotamia? And
also of the Myceneans?

In any case, we now know by tangible proofs that
in very old days a race of the Aryan or Semitic type
already in an advanced stage of culture, lived on the
borders of Mongolia and in Southern Siberia as well
as in Northern China. Anthropology, moreover, allows
us to affirm, apart from the teachings of archaeology
and history, that the white race during long centuries
revealed its vitality and its superiority from the banks
of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea as far as the
coasts of the Pacific, through the famous corridor of
the steppes thousands of miles long; and that the
Chinese Empire was its creation.

One is astounded at the amazing vitality, as also
at the qualities of organization and execution, amount-
ing almost to genius, of these Turco-Iranian people,
who filled history with their high deeds.

For long centuries they played a preponderating
part in China, India, the tableland of Persia and in
Southern Russia.

Then the day came when the whole of Asia was
conquered, and submitted in terror: when Europe
trembled, not only on the banks of the Danube, but
also on the banks of the Loire; the day came when
Byzantium herself fell with a crash before their assaults.
For centuries and centuries, before as well as after
Christ, these Turco-Mongol tribes ploughed their
way through the famous corridor of the steppes, that
enormous stretch of grassland arrested at the east
by the Yellow Sea, at the west by the Black Sea.

219

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

But they knew also how to settle at certain epochs,
- to the detriment of China and other countries of
Central Asia, but happily for us: for if Attila had
succeeded in dragging behind him the Hsiong Nou,
or Eastern Turks, that is to say those who were roving
in Mongolia and Manchuria, who knows if his rush
on Europe would not have ended in a permanent
conquest?

But what were these Turks or Turanians, what
were the Huns of Attila, or again the Mongols of
Genghiz Khan? If we are to believe our historians,
Huns and Mongols are of the yellow race. ‘They
swarm like locusts, and look more like monsters with
dogs’ heads than like men; animals’ blood is their
common drink, and human flesh their favourite meat.
Their legs are so short that to get on horseback they
have to make use of a step ladder with three rungs.’
Thus speaks a chronicler.

Another affirms that ‘the grass ceased to grow where
such a cavalry had passed.’ We are enlightened!

Listen also to what the historian Jornandes says of
the racial origin of the Huns: ‘Amongst the Gothic
people there were witches. King Filimer drove them
away to a solitary place. The evil spirits that prowled
in that desert mated with the witches, and thus Huns
came into the world’ {History of the Goths).

As for modern historians, they all tell us that the
armies of the Huns or Mongols were entirely com-
posed of yellow men, and that even the Turk, so near
them and thus easily observed, is ‘a stout man with
an enormous head, a round fiat face, heavy eyebrows,

220

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

thick lips and cheeks,’ - a yellow man, in a word.
The same description is given of the Magyar and
Bulgarian.

But what is the truth.? I will speak not for the
anthropologist, but simply for anyone who has eyes to
see.

The Turk is one of the finest specimens of the white
race, tall, with long and oval face, thin nose, straight
or arched, thin lips, eye quite open, very often grey or
blue, without prominent eyebrows.

It is needless to add that the Magyars and Bulgars
belong also to the white race, though a certain author
recently assigned them to the yellow race, as also the
Turk, confused formerly with the Huns and the
Mongols.

In the same way, has it not been written, and have
not imitators repeated, that the Ottoman Turk owes
his fine physical type to the institution of the harem.?
As if the possession of a large number of foreign wives
was possible for the mass of the Turks! How could
the habits of a few privileged persons affect the ethnic
character of a whole race.?

Now, there are certain undeniable historic facts
which recall that the greater part of the armies of
Attila, and later those of Genghiz Khan, were composed
of Turks, Iranians, and Wusuns with blue eyes. And
all these peoples of the Caucasian race were the real
Huns, the Mongols, the bearded warriors of great
stature of which the Chinese Annals speak, - irresist-
ible fighters because of their superiority in organiza-
tion and equipment.

221 Q

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

But, then, what were the yellow men? For they were
to be found amongst these hordes: those of short
stature, flat nose, prognathous jaw, thick-lipped mouth,

- veritable negroids which I met with all over China,
mingled to-day with the yellow men (real hybrids)
and the white. These negroids were the grooms and
army servants, - that crowd of slaves and of subjects,

- men whom great captains have always trailed behind
them, and have utilized for the baser tasks of conquest.
For example, the Turks, or Hsiong Nou, had always
reinforced their hordes with contingents of the little
yellow race, often negroid. China from this point of
view seemed to them an inexhaustible reservoir. As
we know, Attila, Genghiz Khan and Tamburlaine did
the same. Moreover, in recent years, did not the
Allies in the Great War mobilize contingents of yellow
and black men? And would anyone say that the Ger-
mans were conquered by these auxiliaries, that these
were the men who organized and achieved victory?

History is constantly repeating itself.

Yet, how is it that the historians of the epoch have
spoken only of horrible little fighting men with yellow
skin, thievish and ferocious? Doubtless because the
great hordes of warriors and white chieftains did not
strike the imagination of the peoples of Europe to the
same degree as this other novel race, differing so much
from their ethnic type, and whose ferocity would
leave poignant memories behind, - a ferocity in good
preservation at the present time (I speak from exper-
ience).

Besides, these yellow or negroid devils, poor

222

CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

wretches, of a low grade in biological development, of
whom I had time to make a long study, could cer-
tainly not be the groups of active conquering armies,
the doers of so many great military and political deeds.
This inferior race of poor mental capacity would have
been totally incapable of the mighty effort of thought
and organizing achievement which brought under one
sceptre all the bellicose nomads and settled peoples of
Central and Eastern Asia, to fling them again as far as
Europe.

The Genghiz Khans, the Tamerlanes, the Kubla
Khans, were not yellow men, but Turco-Iranians, of
the kingly tribes of Mongolia. Their Generals and
other officers had Turkish names. All these warriors
were of the same race as the blue-eyed On-Uighurs,
who were also their teachers.

As to the name ‘Mongol’ applied to a whole people,
it must not be forgotten that in its origin it was only
the name of a single tribe who had adopted the name
of one of its ablest chiefs, Mong Gou, the ancestor of
Genghiz Khan. This tribe quickly became paramount
under this Mong Gou; then the genius of a Khan,
that is to say, of Genghiz, outrivalled all the great
deeds of the On-Uighurs, the Naimans and other
kingly Turkish tribes, thus making his clan for ever
illustrious.

Thus, what was in the first place the name of a
single chieftain, then of his tribe, historians have
converted into the name of a race, of that enormous
human mass, covering a great part of Asia, and even
some regions in Europe.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Now there exists no race specifically Mongol, and
I have given my reasons for that statement (Society
for Study of the Human Form), and historical sug-
gestions and interpretations of texts ought not to
prevail against biological facts.

To-day throughout the whole of Northern China
and Mongolia there can be recognized pure-blooded
or hybrid descendants of the Turco-Iranians or
Semites, by the side of the little yellow or brown
negroid race, which they had enslaved and carried in
the train of their armies.

But is it not strange that a specialist, author of a
classic on Anthropology, should affirm, like a simple
historian, a fact which he was wrong not to verify on
the spot: ‘there are no leptorrhine noses (thin and
prominent) in China, no bearded men, and no blue
eyes.’ He thinks then that all the people called ‘Mon-
gols’ are yellow. He has not been to China.

The conquering Turco-Mongols have also been
regarded as barbarians : it is a manifest error. They had
in the first place inherited one of the finest cultures in
history, the Iranian, and were afterwards initiated into
Greek science, arts and even philosophy, by the
Nestorians. The envoys of St. Louis, the Pope and
other sovereigns to the courts of the Mongolian
Khans were impressed with their high culture, not
less than by the physical resemblance of these great
chieftains to Europeans. These conquerors were men
of powerful brain, beings highly developed biologically.

This is the reason why the present inhabitants of
Mongolia, whose features as well as their intelligence

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

are generally of an inferior racial type, ought not to be
considered as the real descendants of the old Hsiong
Nou, the Turco-Mongols; the most that can be said
is that they are their hybrid descendants.

Moreover, all recent travellers in Mongolia ask the
question : ‘How is it that a race once so powerful and
capable of such feats of conquest, should be to-day
degenerate and reduced in number.? Are they really
the same people.?’

The explanation is simple : the Mongol tribes of the
present day represent only the wreck and refuse of the
ancient hordes, their auxiliaries or negroid slaves, or
even their hybrids, the yellow men.

The great Turco-Mongol race having swarmed
too freely over the Asiatic and European world, the
great reservoir of warriors of yore gradually became
exhausted. These hordes, besides, did not simply
pass through new lands; these appeared so rich that
they gave up the thought of return. There was an ever-
rising tide of men, which finally submerged Byzantium.

The groupings of slaves and half-breeds were thus
definitely abandoned in the desert, on the steppe, in
this Mongolia where they vegetate, incapable of vital
reaction.

Recently, a Polish romancer announced to us that
Mongol tribes driven by some mystic religious impe-
tus were about to surge anew from Gobi to ravage
Europe. Has he ever been in contact with those
poor creatures, whose number (a million in all) and
whose psychic potentiality are well calculated to
reassure us.?

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

There is China, certainly, a considerable mass, and
impressive to those who do not know it. How often
has the spectre been evoked of these millions of men
throwing themselves upon Europe, as in the days of
Attilal

This peril is non-existent in the form which has
hitherto been given to it, the Chinaman being totally
incapable of a like effort of invasion, requiring an
amount of science and organization beyond his present
state of development.

I speak here in knowledge of the facts, basing
myself on scientific data and on observation taken from
life, spread over twenty years.

Let us suppose, however, that China finds one day
a single great renegade nation of the white race, who
can organize and weld her masses, and throw them
on Europe in a rush which may submerge her.

Now, in no part of the world is the Bolshevik so
active as in China, of whom he declares himself
the champion against the great capitalist nations —
‘scourges of the world’ — thus he shouts every day to
the people of Asia. He is trying thus to turn the
masses of the East to his purpose of universal
dominion.

What must we think.^ Can Communist barbarism
reinforced one day by yellow and negroid masses
become a real danger to Central and Western Europe.?
Assuredly, if Europe remains as disunited as at present,
and if the United States do not understand the extent
of their solidarity with the old continent.

We must look at the facts: here are 800 millions of

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Asiatics, without counting Africans, who to-day are
rising in a frenzy for freedom against the supremacy
of the white race: Moscow is fanning the flame with
all her might.

This is, then, the time for high resolutions, for
unreserved mutual help: our civilization is at stake.

I shall not repeat what I said of the Chinaman of
the present day, in the various regions. At the same
time it will be well to draw attention to the inhabitant
of the great coast cities, who is perceptibly more highly
developed than the masses of the interior for the reason
that for centuries before and after Christ, he has come
into permanent contact with white races, - Syrians,
Jews, Hindus, Persians, Arabs, and even Romans:
and from the seventeenth century with Europeans.

These Chinese of Canton, Foo-Chow, Ning-po and
Shanghai, who doubtless have come under the impress,
racial and cerebral, of the white peoples, constitute
to-day the mass of business men, great merchants and
bankers, whose qualities are well known. They form,
besides, throughout the Empire, the population of
clerks of all sorts in the yamens and the counting-
houses. They are naturally to be found in great
numbers in the mandarinate.

The Chinese themselves are perfectly aware of this
hybridization, for one of the most common insults is
that of the tsa chong, or mixture of breeds.

I need not return to the psychic characteristics of the
Chinaman, but I will say a few words on Confucius,
who played a primary part in the modelling of Chinese
character. In philosophy, we have been from child-

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hood nursed on the great names of Confucius and
Laotze; they have been consecrated as the greatest of
thinkers, the sages of sages, the real forerunners.

Is it so? If to study the works of Confucius one
uses Father Wieger’s translation, incontestably the
best, one can sum up in a few words the doctrine of the
philosopher.

He believed in the theism and animism of his
time: he had a firm belief in divination by means of the
shell of the tortoise. He believed above all in Tchong
long, that is to say, the Middle Way - we recognize
India here - in opportunism. No sympathy, no anti-
sympathy, no strong convictions, no tenacious will.
At first sight, no approval, no disapproval, no accept-
ance, no rejection. After reflection, never to decide
for an extreme, for excess and deficiency are alike evil.
Follow always the Via Media, take in everything a
middle position, temporize, shuffle. Every direct
blow is a fault. Every decided opinion hurts some-
one. To insist on your rights is to commit a wrong.
As for the masses, Confucius considered them only
as the foremost domestic animals, who must be looked
after in order to get more out of them.

As to Laotze, the philosopher contemporary of
Confucius, he did not invent Taoism; this doctrine is
nothing but a reproduction of that then current in
India called the Upanishads, a realistic pantheism.

It is in fact, as you know, the doctrine of abstinence
and renunciation. There are no rules, no rites, no code
of morals, for fear of warping the natural instincts.
There is neither good nor evil, nor supernatural sanc-

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tions. As for the credulous masses, they must be
treated with a benevolent pity.

Such is Chinese philosophy, a borrowed philosophy
of Indian origin. It has no depth of penetration
and cannot be compared with the conceptions of a
Plato or a Marcus Aurelius.

At the same time, the Chinese code of morals
contains some excellent guides to conduct, especially
when it has to do with filial piety, the cult of the
ancestors; no one will dispute this. But this code is not
such as to impress by its superiority, and it has never
created these supermen, these phenomenal beings of
which we are always being reminded.

Speaking of these sages, Voltaire in particular
exaggerates beyond all limits the value of their teach-
ing. One even wonders whether he ever read the
Canonics or the Classics, Certainly he had a special
end in view, which can be guessed; he makes it
apparent when he dares to affirm that the Chinaman,
contrary to the European, knows no superstition.

Superstition in all its most primitive, most degrad-
ing forms is the running sore of China, the canker
that gnaws it and paralyses every act of its existence.

F rom this point of view, no comparison could be estab-
lished between the European, for the main part enfran-
chised from all this fetishism, and the miserable China-
man who for long years yet will remain its willing victim.

CHINESE ART

Was Chinese art really a spontaneous and lasting
creation and did it develop in the framework of

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Chinese society, inspired only by its own national
genius?

To reply to this question, I cannot do better than
quote certain archaeologists, particularly the Russian
RostovtzefF and the English Bushell.

Iranian and Chinese Art.

I quote:

‘The striking resemblance between the symbolic
animal of the Scythians (Iranians) and the Chinese
cannot be accidental.

‘The Assyro-Babylonian decorative designs are
predominant in the art of these two peoples. There
is not a shadow of doubt that both received their
symbolic animal from a common source - from Iranian
Central Asia.

‘Doubtless the Scythians were more strongly influ-
enced, in consequence of their relations with Persian
and Greek art. Even so, the common origin is plain.

‘At a more recent epoch, the repetition of the same
fact is revealed in China, the China of the Hellenic
period (Han Dynasty, 206 b.c. to a . d . 221).

‘Even the military organization of China was
transformed by the Han Dynasty on the Iranian
model. This Iranian influence made itself felt in
China not through Parthea and Bactria, but by the
medium of the Sarmatians (Iranians) who took part
in the incessant attacks of the Huns against China.

‘The Huns had no culture of their own; they had
borrowed everything, even their military art, from the
Sarmatians and the Alans.

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

‘China adopted also the equipment of the Sar-
matians, their cuirass and their coat of mail, their
heavy lances, their conical helmets, their characteristic
arrows with triangular heads, their short poignard
with curved point, the harness of their cavalry, their
long-handled and pommelled swords with jade
guards.

‘Jade ornaments are most common in the tombs
of Southern Russia (Sarmatian tombs).

‘The custom in certain Chinese dynasties of bury-
ing dozens of little clay figures (gods of death) to
represent the funeral procession, is Iranian.

‘Amongst these statuettes can be recognized the
horned lion-gryphon which is Iranian, and another
type half-man, half-lion, the head of which is covered
with an elephant’s skin. Other statuettes of Sarmatian
conception, of the grotesque type, are found by the
dozen in the Chinese tombs of the Han Dynasty.

‘We find also the same rattle in Scythian and
Chinese tombs; mirrors, and metal pots of the same
shape in Sarmatian and Chinese tombs.

‘The decorative design of the gryphon with eagle’s
head and eyes is constantly employed by the Chinese
of the Han Dynasty; it is the same with the floral
motifs representing animals’ extremities.

‘The characteristic of the ornamental system of
ornament in the Chou Dynasty (i 12Z-249 b.c.) is the
representation of fantastic animals of four types:

(1) a gryphon with the head of a horned crested lion;

(2) a gryphon with an eagle’s head, furnished with
ears and a crest; (3) a dragon or serpent-gryphon,

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

with horned head, teeth, and sometimes ears or crest;
(4) the same dragon, but without horns.

‘These types of composite animals are not Chinese,
though of Chinese making: they are entirely char-
acteristic of Assyro-Babylonian art, derived from
Sumerian Art.’ (Rostovtzeff, Iranians and Greeks in
South Russia^

Let us look much later at the first centuries of the
Christian era, when a complete transformation of the
arts of China took place, that is to say at the epoch
of the introduction of Buddhism into the Empire of
the Hans - ‘the influence of the ideas and arts of
India,’ says Bushell, who is an authority, ‘was all-
pervading.'

‘Chinese art was nothing but convention and
routine; Buddhist art brought it out from this stag-
nation.’ (Bushell.)

But what is this Buddhist art? You know: recent
discoveries in Chinese Turkestan and at Honan (Cen-
tral China) show that the school of Gandhara initiated
India, China, and even Japan, into the beauties and
perfection of Greek art.

Alexander was not only a great warrior; he is
revealed as also a great organizer. It was indeed he
who prepared the way for the dominance of Hellenic
art and even Science in nearly the whole of Asia, with
the Hindu as interpreter.

The Chinese chroniclers themselves acknowledge
that with Buddhism they received the gift of Greek
artistic and scientific culture. The whole of their
civilization, they add, was transformed and revived.

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Bushell recognizes it: ‘It was the golden age of the
arts, but also the apogee of letters and poetry.’

This was the great Tang period, of which China
is so proud. But this renaissance could not stand; on
the next dynasty, the Song, decadence is evident: not
only did the arts degenerate, but also letters. Nothing
was written but commentaries and encyclopaedias,
whilst the canons of art deteriorated and became
distorted.

But there is a fresh awakening at the Ming epoch
(fourteenth century). Who was the moving spirit?
The great Mongol Kubla Khan, who depopulated
Central and Western Asia, including part of Europe,
depopulated it of its artists and learned men and
craftsmen to adorn China over which he ruled, - to
make it the most powerful, the most cultured, the
most prosperous of empires, surpassing Rome and
Byzantium.

‘As regards the ceramic art, it is known that the
first painted Chinese porcelain is decorated with Arab
characters surrounded with conventional flowers, be-
traying a marked Persian influence.’ (Bushell.)

It is now well known that the famous glazed tiles,
yellow, green, turquoise blue of the Imperial temples
at Pekin reproduce entirely Chaldean and Persian
technique.

China owes to the Arabs the technique of enamelled
glass.

As for the art of enamel, the Chinese themselves
confess that it came from Byzantium..

As regards the ceramic art in general, the astonish-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

ing fact is that this art only attained full development
at a very late stage. As Bernard Rackham well said,
the vases made before the Christian era belong to the
category called ‘primitive,’ and are often considered
as having no other value than an ethnic one. This
pottery is not conspicuous for variety: nevertheless,
some unglazed vases of the Chou Dynasty are of real
beauty. (It is known that the founder of this dynasty
was of Turco-Iranian origin, and that at all times very
active relations existed between China and Central
and Western Asia by way of Turkestan.) Recent
excavations in Honan (North Central China) have
brought to light polychrome pottery of black or white
designs on a red ground, remarkably resembling
those of Anau (Turkestan) and even those found in
Greece and Sicily. Besides this, amongst many of the
archaic specimens collected in China, it is easy to
recognize the influence of Susa and of the majority
of its models. From the point of view of technique
the Chou pottery was nevertheless far from being
perfect, and we must come to the Han Dynasty (two
centuries b.c. and two centuries after) to notice a real
artistic progress.

Again the Chinese artist was behind Egypt and
Greece by many centuries. Is it not also surprising
that, after the Han Dynasty, Western influence on
Chinese ceramics should be very marked, both in
inspiration and technique.?

In short, whether it is a question of ceramics,
painting and sculpture, or again of literature, science
and religion, and even political economy, one is

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obliged to acknowledge that the Chinaman has always
been lacking in imagination, that he has rarely been a
creator, but rather an imitator. If he has often shone
in detailed work, he has been a stranger to large concep-
tions.

SCIENCES

I will first say a few words on two questions over
which much ink has been spilt: they are the Chinese
astronomical system and the invention of gunpowder.

Leopold de Saussure, the most competent of
authorities, wrote to me on the second of July, 1925:
‘Your views are in unison with my conclusions, that
the almanack of the very ancient Hsia dynasty is an
evident application of the Indo-Iranian cosmological
system. . . . Proof of an importation into China of
superior elements of the Aryan race.’

As regards the invention of gunpowder, Marcellin
Berthelot, our great chemist, declares that it was no
more a Chinese invention than Greek fire. The merit
of these discoveries goes back to the Byzantine
Greeks.

In short, if we look for originality and real creative
work in art and in science, we are greatly disappointed:
the Chinese were borrowers, always borrowers. As
regards moral codes and disciplines, we see, after
the Buddhist era, Confucianism revive and exist up
to our own day, and impose itself more strongly than
ever in spite of its lack of energizing force. For all
its essential precepts can be summed up under three
heads: (i) Perpetuate the line; (2) Sacrifice regularly

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

on the altar or the tomb of the ancestors; (3) Assure
the conservation of the family patrimony.

In a word, all is sacrificed to the family. No allu-
sion is made to the public good, to the general interest,
still less to the fatherland.

To-day the Chinaman is still in the patriarchal age,
and he cannot get out of it in a day.

But in the intellectual sphere, why has the Chinaman
shown so little of the creative power.? Why has he been
sunk in torpor for centuries, only recovering a little
energy from time to time thanks to fresh supplies
brought him by the foreigner at well-known epochs.?
We have explained this.

There is no renewing, neither is there any reju-
venescence in the governing class; in spite of the
existence of the so much vaunted system of examin-
ation open to all, those chosen are found always to
belong to the great families. There is no place in the
mandarinate for the son of the people.

But how comes it that in the course of centuries
no one has been found to shake off the tyranny of the
old literati^ to transform the depressing ritual of the
educational system, fatal to brain development.? Is
the race then lacking in will-power - can it live only
on the past and in the past, incapable of an effort to
free itself.?

What is the reason for this bankruptcy.? Without
any doubt it is due to the constant and fatal reaction
of the extinguisher of which I have spoken, - of this
great mass of negroids and of inferior hybrids who

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

form the majority of the Chinese population, and whose
blood has fatally impregnated the ^lite by the easy
method of the polygamy which is widely practised.

THE POLITICAL SPHERE

In China there has never been any political unity,
any more than ethnic or social unity.

Never has a country seen more revolutions and civil
wars; and if it has survived, it can be said that it owes
its life to its great distance from Europe.

Save for short periods of their history, the different
provinces of China have lived a self-governing life
under the control, more nominal than real, of Pekin,
and have remained indifferent to each other's fate,
even in time of war.

The Viceroys, as also the high mandarins, are only
tax collectors. The notables of every village, canton
or city, carry on the administration on their own
responsibility, and themselves maintain the roads and
canals of their district.

Thus, where there is no collective effort, there is no
community of soul or sentiment. The general interest
is ignored. The mandarin who has paid for his right
to enrich himself is never sure of the morrow. He is
then in a hurry to heap up money for his old age, and
is concerned with himself and not with his district.
Thus it is from top to bottom of the mandarin ladder.

When we therefore examine the 61 ite, the privileged
class of literati of whom Confucius is the prototype,
we cannot help holding this class responsible in great
part for the past and present situation of China. It

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

lived in isolation from the masses, set up on a pedestal,
admiring itself and glorifying itself with an unfathom-
able pride.

The system of education and instruction which it
had created ceased to stimulate its intelligence, or
give it any creative energy. Thus it became stereo-
typed in the acquisitions of the past, - acquisitions
whose source must be looked for in Western Asia.

On the other hand, ignoring the maxim mens sana
in corpore sano, this class lived all the time in absolute
bodily idleness, avoiding all movement and effort,
going about only in a palanquin, and never using
its muscles, - disdainful also of open spaces and that
marvellous health-giver, fresh air -but on the con-
tary greedy of the joys of the table and the harem.

In the practical sphere, the mandarin, always a
member of the too bookish lettered class, and con-
temptuous of all besides his classics, has been a
wretched ruler; large ideas are foreign to him. He has
never been able either to muster or to co-ordinate
what is at his disposal, nor subsequently known how
to frame a constructive policy when it is a question
of the needs of the country as against the sum of its
resources. There has never been a general budget
for the empire, a budget worthy of the name.

When, on the other hand, you consider the great
economic organizations of China, - railways, ports,
factories, mining operations - you are forced to realize
that without European help the Chinese would achieve
only a mediocre return or even a rapid diminution
of these industries. The railroads that he is now

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CHINA’S ETHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS

working, so prosperous in the days of European
management, are to-day in a lamentable state, neither
permanent way nor rolling stock being maintained.

Has the Chinaman at least been able to defend
himself against the periodic scourges which have
regularly assailed him during long centuries, - against
flood, for instance, or against epidemics.? No; he is
still totally powerless in face of them; he is devoured
by tuberculosis and syphilis; and cholera, the plague,
smallpox and typhus fever take toll of him to an extent
no European can imagine.

He is so immensely ignorant of hygiene that he is
the victim of all the possible contagions, and he has
remained in the age of lice and vermin, while the
victims of itch and scab are innumerable.

As, on the other hand, infantile mortality exceeds
50 per cent., it is vain and absurd to go on speaking
of 400 millions of Chinese. My statistics allow me to
affirm that there are at most 300 millions, and that the
population is not increasing.

One circumstance, however, one religion has saved
China, and has preserved her through the ages from
extinction: and that is ancestral worship, involving
the dogma of procreation to the utmost extent, under
penalty of every calamity for the disobedient.

It is this China, however, nearer the Middle Ages
than the twentieth century, which in 1 9 1 1 deter-
mined to pass abruptly from her secular absolutism
to a democratic system.

You know what this experience has cost her during
fifteen years, - poverty in the midst of anarchy, an

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

immense poignant distress, and the loss of 20 millions
of her population by civil war and famine.

This is the balance sheet of the Chinese republic
from 1 9 1 1 to this day, the balance sheet of a period of
veritable retrogression, comparable only to the Bol-
shevist experiment.

Et nunc erudimini gentes . . . Natura non facii
saltus.

CHAPTER XIV

YOUNG CHINA

I N Spite of the state of anarchy now existing in
China, I was able to travel in the interior and
accomplish my eighth mission, and above all carry
out the geographical and economic study which I had
planned, in 1923, in the great province of Shansi, on
the borders of Mongolia.

The study of this part of the country has at last
decided for me China’s capability of evolution, taking
into account her natural resources on the one hand,
and, on the other, the physical and mental powers of
her people.

I have thus acquired the elements of a comple-
mentary view of my earlier long studies in Central
China and in the West, and I can, I think, affirm that
I now have a general view of the economic situation,
and, from that, the political situation of the old Empire,
which cannot lend itself to optimistic conclusions.
All the less as China is, it cannot be doubted, the pivot
of the Pacific situation, and it may even be said the
pivot of the world’s equilibrium.

In short, it is for this economic prey, this enormous
market, that to-day more than ever, England, America
and Japan are fighting, with a persistence that may
lead to conflict.

All the more as the situation has become compli-
cated by the entrance of Russia on the scene, with the
Bolshevik more imperialistic than the Czars, and strong
in the great art of managing Oriental proletariats.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

It is this situation which I am going to try to explain
and analyse, in its repercussions of a political or
economic character. I shall not fail also to consider
the important problem of ex-territorial rights, -
privileges to-day battered down by Young China, but
nevertheless more than ever necessary to Europe and
to the cause of peace. There is also the question of the
new education, and its effect on the Chinese student.

On this head, a question frequently asked me is:
‘What do you think of the present evolution of
China.?’

What I think I can express in one word, if what is
meant is social progress, and not merely the mechanical
improvements recently introduced into the Far East;
this evolution is eminently of the ‘backwards’ type.
The Chinese are returning to the feudal epoch of their
history, to the rupture of all unity, political or moral.
The present master of one or of several provinces is the
Tu-Chun, real military dictator, powerful baron with
his own army, his pretorians, by whose aid he domin-
ates a more or less vast territory, exploiting it for
his personal profit and the profit of his clan.

Even if a big railroad crosses his territory, the
Tu-Chun does not hesitate to take for himself the
largest share of the receipts.

It would be the same with the Customs revenues
did not a handful of Europeans, representing the big
creditor Powers, have charge of that money.

In certain provinces, too, the Tu-Chun has restarted
the culture of the opium poppy.

Thus the political clans which are at present exploit-
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ing China are not content with laying hands on her
resources, seizing her public and private property at
their convenience, but they are encouraging every
vice which can become remunerative to them.

And the people pay the price, in physical and moral
loss, in the reduction of their daily bread, already so
meagre in quantity.

It is a fact that the agricultural production of China
barely suffices in ordinary times to nourish the popu-
lation, - how much less in times of drought or flood.^
It follows then that the introduction and rapid spread
of the cultivation of the poppy in nearly all the pro-
vinces is one calamity more, by reducing the acreage
for cereals. Is this the time to reduce the production
of food, when famines are more frequent than ever?

Such is the present economic position, aggravated
if not created by the rule of the Tu-Chuns, a rule which
threatens to become still more harmful from the fact
of the hysterical agitation among the school-children,
- the students, as they call themselves, even if they
have not yet reached their twelfth summer.

The incessant buzzing of these young hornets, their
capering and disorderly activity, would soon exhaust
itself and be no cause for anxiety, were it not directed
and to a certain extent sustained by foreign elements,
of strong will, and with a programme to bring about
democracy at any price, even at the risk of raising
all the yellow people against the whites.

In brief, the new student caste, having left the
beaten track, and consequently discarded a past
which under its patriarchal form had its grandeur,

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

- this new caste throws itself head foremost into the
unknown, - in search of political and social panaceas
of whose direction and scope it knows nothing.

The psychic development of the Chinaman, his
age in biology, forbids him in fact such comprehen-
sion, and consequently any useful selection amongst
those new ideas, some healthy, some unhealthy, which
are coming to him from East and from West.

In these conditions, the new-style student and the
new-style mandarin can only bring about trouble,
anarchy. This is the brutal fact which I perceive in
every sphere, and to which I shall return.

This confused ferment without order is also char-
acterized by a very aggressive renewal of hatred of
foreigners, which indiscreet tourist-missionaries call
patriotism, or the spirit of nationality. Too many
people really think that it is enough to stay some
months at Shanghai or Pekin, - that is to say, on the
threshold of China, - and pick up some gleanings
there, in order to have the right henceforth to dis-
sertate at random on this immense country and its
complex problems.

I have just alluded to the aggressive xenophobia of
Young China. I could not but perceive it in a thousand
forms as soon as I arrived at Hong-Kong and Canton;
it was the same in Central China and finally in the
North, and even in the interior of Shansi, a province
which however is peaceful and in which alone reign
order and quietude, thanks to the intelligent energy
of the Governor-General, an example of the old Vice-
roys endowed with great administrative qualities.

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YOUNG CHINA

Speaking just now of the regime of the military
lords and of the anarchy which it brings, I said that
the student class - that is to say, the future rulers of
China - contribute largely to aggravate the existing
troubles by its incessant and disorderly agitation.
Here is a fact on the gravity of which all Europeans
or Americans living in China are in full agreement,
and do not fail to lament in their newspaper press as
also in the meetings of their Chambers of Commerce.

Needless to say, the Chinese themselves are much
more affected by the situation than Europeans.

The schoolboy element interferes in everything and
everywhere, even, and indeed chiefly, in foreign
politics, for it appears that internal problems and the
desperate struggles between the clans do not suffice
for its voracious activity.

How many times during these latter years has not
the Central Government been summoned to conform
with this or that ‘instruction’ with regard to a foreign
nation, an instruction which emanates from com-
mittees of students? It was above all during the
Washington Conference that these Committees gave
themselves up to this pursuit with all their heart.

The serious boycotts from which Japan has suf-
fered have naturally been organized by students,
anxious before everything else to put themselves into
prominence, even at the risk of grave and embar-
rassing complications for the Government.

What is most odd is that those for the moment mas-
ters in China have a veritable terror of these noisy
bands of schoolboys, and dread the actions and atti-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

tudes of these comic-opera tenors, who aspire to play
and to provoke admiration on the world’s stage.

Nothing is more characteristic, moreover, of the
Chinaman than this theatricalism, this need of parading
himself, movmting on the boards, if only to beat a drum.

The student, in short, meddles in everything, and
whether it is a question of foreign affairs or of political
economy or of finance, he signifies his orders to all,
with a threat of reprisals if he is not obeyed, threats
more especially to denounce this or that Governor
whose conscience is not at ease.

The accusation most dreaded by men in office is
not that of extortion, a venial offence in China, but
rather that of being corrupted by foreign gold — of
selling his country, - an accusation easily fashioned by
excited young heads.

I must not fail to notice the frequency of ‘direct
action’ among the students. Every European who
has resided some time in China has seen defile one
of these long, incredibly long, processions, with banners
bearing appeals for vengeance, and fulminating de-
mands in trenchant style.

And what do these processions consist of? Infants,
- youths of both sexes with faces amazingly grave
or rather without expression, proclaiming in shrill
voice the sovereign rights of China and - of school-
children.

The crowd looks on interested, ironical. It loves
theatre and comedy, everything that provides it with
distractions.

Street processions are generally inoffensive except
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YOUNG CHINA

when a boycott of the foreigner is ordained; but what
always causes astonishment to us Europeans is the
occurrence of strikes, of real strikes, in the schools.
These strikes, which last sometimes for weeks, some-
times for months, are decreed by a committee of pupils
who put forward certain general demands, or wish to
express dissatisfaction with their professors or principal.

A prevalent claim which foreigners know well is
that the students should discuss the course of studies,
and fix its character and extent. Above all they desire
to reduce the length of their studies according to their
own whims, and even go to the length of maltreating
their masters, demanding their dismissal if these do
not submit to their caprices.

The columns of the Chinese and foreign press
record almost every week some noisy revolt of students,
some strike of striplings directed against the school
administration or the staff, in short against those
who aim at initiating them in a certain amount of
discipline as well as in a certain amount of knowledge.

Such are the deplorable effects produced upon
young brains by those commodities recently imported
into China, which are called liberty and democracy.

Of liberty the student makes full use; we have seen
how he interprets it, to the deep despair of his family
and of his teachers, and to the detriment of his future
and of his capacity for action. At this period of the
history of China, during a most difficult social and
economic transformation, the Chinese student behaves
like an enfant terrible.

Strange to say, this disorder in schools and univer-
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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

sities has persisted for years, and no one has dared
to bring the chaos to an end. All the constitutional
authorities have allowed themselves to be made fools
of, not excepting the guilds of bankers and great
merchants, who were one day called upon to break
off all transactions with a certain foreign power, which
it seems had shown insufficient respect for the sover-
eign rights of China.

Such is the schoolboy of to-day in China, a noisy,
buzzing fly on the wheel. It is however fair to say in
mitigation of his faults that the student has been in
some measure encouraged in his present attitude,
in his formation of committees of public safety, and
in some of his least reasonable demands, by a very
well-meaning foreign philanthropic organization, which
thinks it useful and beneficial to transform the China-
man into an American and to make of China the great
democracy of Asia.

This Society preaches emancipation and self-deter-
mination, and denounces all attacks on liberty, either
political or social. But it has committed the impru-
dence of not taking into accoimt the psychic age of the
Chinaman, of ignoring his stage in the evolutionary
process. It has inculcated principles which to be
understood and wholesomely applied require a maturity
and a mental poise which are not yet possessed by any
but a few European and American democracies.

In short, the Chinaman is made to run before he
has learned to walk.

For instance, is not the schoolboy taught to think
himself possessed of all the rights of an enlightened

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YOUNG CHINA

citizen? Whence comes the incentive to interest him-
self in all the features of the political and economic
life of his country, - the obligation to interfere by
speech and action every time that those in authority
appear to be forgetting their duty?

Apparently every youth possesses the necessary
intuition and correct judgment to deal with difficult
national or international problems.

Accordingly the University student, already so
prone to exaggerate his own importance, and to
believe that he alone is able to assure the destinies of
his country, has perforce profited to the full from a
similar lesson, and consequently quickly acquired the
habit of shouting his rights as a citizen, his special
rights as belonging to the old privileged caste.

I was forgetting to add that the young girl ‘students
are trying to imitate this fine example, and to signalize
themselves by their claims and pretensions, - even the
schoolgirls enrolled under the austere banner of the
Y.W.C.A.

For instance, in October, 1923, at Hang Chow,
this organization called together a Conference of its
adherents from several provinces, to do what? - you
would never guess - ‘to solve the great social and
industrial problems of China.’

Nothing less than that!

With reference to this Conference, a big English
daily paper at Shanghai published last year a signi-
ficant letter from an occasional correspondent, entitled
‘Miss Americana.’ It introduced this young lady under
her various aspects in China - doctor, teacher, mis-

249

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

sionary, globe-trotter and lecturer. The writer of this
letter comments ironically but without prejudice or
malice on the touching fervour of Miss Americana
for democracy, and her passionate wish to make it
triumphant all over the world. He draws attention too
to the ardour of her faith in the equality of races and
minds, in the need for the emancipation of all peoples,
in her belief in the possibility of the transformation of
humanity, the rapid conversion of hundreds of mil-
lions of heathen.^ - achievements in which the United
States will take the leading part.

The author of the letter ended by the assertion that
the present-day variegated education, half-foreign, half-
national, given to the Chinese, and specially American
teaching, was the real cause, of the extravagant want of
discipline of the present generation of students.

He added, ‘Miss Americana does evil in China, but
means so well!’ Her faith, her candour, are really
touching !

In October, 1923, finding myself at Pekin, I learned
that an American lady lecturer and magazine writer
was giving a series of lectures there.

Here is a list of the subjects which she was treat-
ing in the girls’ colleges: What the Chinese girl can
do: (i) to arrive at a state of peace; (2) to create a
universal language; (3) to realize the equality of man
and woman; (4) to achieve the union of all known
religions; (5), and, lastly, to inaugurate a new civiliza-
tion based on science and on faith, the real solvents to
throw into the crucible from which will gush out world
peace.

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YOUNG CHINA

The lady had panaceas for all the woes and all the
mistakes of humanity; and she retailed them with
pious conviction to young girls whose mothers and
grandmothers (if of high social position) have always
lived apart from the tumult of the world, in the
interior of a yamen or rich private house, as secluded
as Turkish ladies.

People do not realize, in short, that up to now the
Chinese woman, even of quality, has been system-
atically kept in ignorance, and considered socially as
non-existent; she is deprived even of authority in her
own family. Woman does not count in China, and
has not counted for long centuries. Although her
ancestors built schools for their sons, it certainly
never occurred to them to make any educational pro-
vision for their daughters, - those poor creatures
debarred with their mother from the paternal table,
relegated to the back of the house with the concubines
and servants. (Nevertheless, China has had for several
years Government schools for girls.) It is unnecessary
to insist on the effects of atavism, on the spiritual and
intellectual poverty which is the result of such an
upbringing in the Chinese woman, intensified by her
cloistered life. These poor brains congealed for hun-
dreds and thousands of years are being abruptly
brought into contact with all the rubbish of modern
sociology; all the day-dreams, the nebulous ideals
which have no meaning or interest, except to certain
exalted minds, endowed with more emotionalism than
sense.

European and American lecturers of both sexes
251

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

have swooped down upon China in large numbers
during these last years. Some were of real value, -
others were mere social mystics. The former might
have made some beneficial impression on their audi-
ences if they had been able to adapt themselves to the
Chinese manner of thinking, to bring themselves down
to a lower mental level than ours. But as they were
ignorant of the ethnic and social environment of the
Chinese, they could only discourse from a Western
standpoint, could only express themselves in the lan-
guage current in very advanced European circles.
They could not be understood. Their moral and philo-
sophic dissertations have only served to trouble the
brains of their hearers, students for the most part, -
to lead them astray in strange paths, to dangerous
experiences.

Everything has been preached, - Communism, Bol-
shevism, and even Malthusianism.

But of all the social metaphysicians who have come to
blazon their gospel to China, the most curious and the
least comprehensible was certainly Bertrand Russell.

He was the first to scatter flattery broadcast, the
first to see China through coloured glasses, - hence
the danger of his propaganda.

His excuse would be that he was only a passing
visitor in China. Even then, one suspects that he
came with his preconceived ideas, with a vision of the
old empire in a mirage of Socialism. One can guess
that he came here to look for and thought he had
found a ‘promised land’ where it might be possible
to realize his social ideal of an earthly paradise.

25a

YOUNG CHINA

Listen to what he says:

‘China has discovered and practised for centuries
a manner of life (indolence) which if it were adopted
by every one would make the happiness of the universe.
But the European has not been willing, because he
is all for progress, itself the source of so many evils.
The indifference of the Chinese to change, his pas-
sivity, are certainly less harmful than the vitality and
the energy of the European.’

He continues: ‘The Chinese seek after no other
good than justice and liberty.’ It is here very evident
that Bertrand Russell is ignorant of all the social
organism and the mental characteristics of the Chinese;
he knows the past as little as the present. The past,
- a terrible history of political upheavals and chronic
suffering; the present, -the new regime designated
democratic; all the world knows what it is, -a hard
despotism.

We learn from Bertrand Russell also that the Chinese
student forms one of the finest intellectual types of
existing humanity. He is content to affirm this; he
suppresses China’s stagnation and her incapacity for
evolution lasting for centuries. He does not attempt
to explain this by a failure in cerebral power, the
absence of the creative activity of the white race which
has transformed Europe and the world. No, fixed in
his idea that China is the ‘promised land,’ the Socialist
paradise, he refrains from looking round him and
inquiring: all is to be fine, brilliant, superior to the
societies of Europe and America, whose ‘absurd
energy brings trouble everywhere.’

253

s

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Thus he pronounces succinctly that Chinese students,
young reformers as he calls them, are on the way
to inaugurate a civilization and a culture immeasur-
ably better than that worn-out, creaking organism
which is called European Civilization.

In short, the Socialist apostle ends by giving this
counsel: ‘The man who esteems wisdom (inertia),
beauty, and the joys of life (material joys, I imagine,
highly prized by the Chinaman), ought to go to
China.’

The rich Chinaman of the present day thinks the
contrary; whenever he can escape from the hold of
his surroundings he hastens to transport his penates
to the great open ports under the European Conces-
sions. The rich man of the Southern provinces takes
refuge in mass in the English colony of Hong-Kong.

What conclusion was drawn from the sermons of
the Socialist lecturer, what was the result of his extra-
vagant praise of the youth of the schools.'* Once more
then these youths have been exalted in their pride, the
stupefying pride which was always a characteristic of
the mandarin class, full of disdain for the Western I
barbarian. History teaches us that these ‘intellectuals,’
congealed in their out-of-date ideas, refused to under- i
stand last century human evolution and new econo- |
mic necessities, whence came the cruel lessons which j
Europe had to give to the old petrified empire.

This ancient caste, interesting from some stand-
points, loving culture and possessing a social code not
without greatness, this caste by its pride and its con-
tempt of all that does not emanate from itself, has been

254

YOUNG CHINA

the misfortune of China. But is it not to be feared that
the new generation, spoilt by the wrong education,
will fall into the mistakes of the older generation, and
even aggravate them by the fact that it considers itself
so much in advance of the latter.

Is it not learning Western science, of which its
ancestors were ignorant?

Above all. Young China is bold, and thinks itself
capable of everything. But with the complexity of
modern problems, with the new needs of China, the
necessary transformation of her vast unhomogeneous
territory, no Government of whatever stability will be
capable of organization by the single effort of the
present generation; its inadequacy will equal its ade-
quacy. The present anarchy can only increase till the
final cataclysm, the definite rupture of all unity, if not
the loss of all real independence. Let us hope that
Young China will at last begin to understand.

If not, what hopes can be founded on a social elect
who will bow to no discipline, either of family or
school or law, and aims at making a clean slate of the
past with all its religious and philosophic tradition?

If only Young China would deign to submit to the
classic forms of teaching the modern sciences. But he
will not; in his real shrinking from effort, he tries to
reduce it to a minimum, which makes it almost useless
as a training of the mind. These meagre studies
besides are constantly broken by interruptions and by
the desired cessation of all work, - by the strike, in a
word,- without reckoning the disturbances of all kinds,
mainly political, which come so often to disturb study.

255

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

In truth, foreigners, and Americans in particular,
are partly responsible in this matter; there have been
too many lectures on liberty, the rights of man, too
many social panaceas formulated. Young brains have
been maddened, young brains which, though under-
going the crisis of change, are unfit by their traditions
and their limited ancestral life in the family circle
and geographical environment to separate the socialist
chaff from the democratic good grain.

Even the good grain could hardly germinate in a
night on Chinese soil, in the land of absolutism, whose
patriarchal shape has been falsely trimmed to the
ticket of ‘government by the people.’

Then, besides dangerous mystics, too many well-
intentioned people, full of altruism, have come to
aggravate a social crisis which might have been resolved
with some prudence, and a better comprehension of
Chinese psychology, and of its forms of adaptation,
modelled on solid traditions, on a family discipline of
the most efficient kind.

On the plea of democracy, of the liberty of the
individual, unhappily family discipline, the great
social restraining influence in China, has been dis-
turbed, - hence the present disorder in the schools and
universities, as in the country.

It is high time to return to widespread social tradi-
tions which are the best heritage of the past, and for
the Chinese their best guide.

The student has been put into a hot-house ; he should
be allowed, on the contrary, to develop more slowly
in strict connection with those of his ancestral ideas

256

YOUNG CHINA

whose survival through so many vicissitudes has
proved their great value.

Some mandarins of the old school whom I knew
were full of practical intelligence and good sense,
excelling in ruling the masses, and keeping them in
the path of duty. The present Governor of Shansi,
Yen, is a good example. He knows how to combine
the modern and the traditional spirit in the best way;
his province in consequence enjoys complete peace.

Catholic missionaries for their part have known how
to build modern education on the foundation of
Chinese tradition. They have taken care not to for-
mulate a single political theory, democratic or other,
nor to teach their pupils to criticize the established
order, or to dictate to Ministers their home or foreign
policy. Their schools, which are animated with the
desire to Increase the prestige of their country at the
same time as the aptitudes of their Chinese pupils,
could be considerably developed if their resources
were not so small, in particular the excellent French
creation, the University of Shanghai.

The French Government is not rich enough to give
them adequate help. It thus becomes necessary that
the financial world, the large banks particularly, should
make up their minds to follow the example so fre-
quently given by English and Americans. It is a fact
that numbers of schools in China are entirely sup-
ported by the donations of private persons, or, more
often, of great banking and commercial establish-
ments. Have I not seen the English firms of Jardine
and Butterfield putting their names down for £$ofioo

2S7

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

each to go to a scholastic foundation? Even the Chinese
offer considerable sums to schools with a foreign label.
I know of one who gave as much as 100,000 dollars
at one time, Ho Tong of Canton.

Why have the French in China, bankers or wealthy
merchants, given no help towards the needs of our
good works, our schools, our laboratories, poorly
endowed by our Government mainly on account of
the depreciation of the franc? Why does not the
Frenchman every now and then do the same acts of
generosity as the Englishman or the American, not to
speak of the Chinese? Does it reflect honour on him-
self to allow France to be outrivalled in the struggle
for influence through science, a struggle which be-
comes more difficult each year as our means are
reduced.

I have yet a word to say on ‘returned students,’ on
the subject of whom the Far East Press has had so
much to say.

These students, on their return from Europe or
America, have been the cause of great disappointment
both to their compatriots and to foreigners who
endowed their studies in the expectation of appreciable
results.

They are accused generally- (i) of showing little
aptitude or ardour for work; (2) of servilely imitating
the European, particularly in his bad habits; (3) of
taking no further interest in the characteristics, ten-
dencies, literature and history of their native land;
(4) of exaggerating their knowledge of foreign sciences
and of not having acquired anything but a smattering

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YOUNG CHINA

without practical utility; (5) of parading their superi-
ority and entertaining ambitions quite out of proportion
to their capacity.

If, however, all this is true of many, it is not fair to
generalize. I know returned students in China who
have largely profited by their stay in Europe and have
acquired culture and knowledge which will make
them useful servants of their country.

This refers rather to the students returning from
France and Belgium than from America, where studies
are much less arduous.

However that may be, it seems to be true of most
of these young people that as soon as they return to
China they fall again under the ill-omened influence
of the old tradition which has made the mandarin,
that is the official, the man above all to be envied, and
to whom honours and wealth naturally flow. The
result is that the majority of young men aim at official
positions, where life is at once easy and brilliant, and
where the art of speaking, and the game of political
intrigue, can be infinitely more profitable than any
scientific calling.

Whatever the social status of a Chinaman, he finds
supreme attractiveness in the career of politician or
mandarin.

This turn of mind cannot lead to great things; it
has already shown itself sterile; it can hardly tend to
the development of men of strong character, active as
well as prudent, of whom China has great need. Thus
at the present time the result is the continuation of
civil war, and the unworthy quarrels of clans, from

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

which the Tu-Chun alone gets a profit; deeper and
deeper China sinks into the quicksands.

Some time ago an American paper, the Far Eastern
Review, claimed for the returned student a title of
honour for having ‘changed the monarchy into a repub-
lic, ancient despotism into democracy, and for having
effected the passage from Conservatism to Liberalism.’

Now, only look at recent history and see the irony
of facts; China has indeed changed her banner, hoisted
that of Republicanism, but how little this symbol coin-
cides with the facts. They may prate of democratic
rule in China, but the present king is the Tu-Chun,
whose mercenaries, dregs of the population, are the
terror of both cities and villages, which they pillage
without mercy, even carrying away women and young
girls for their pleasures.

From the foreigner’s point of view, there is no
longer any security for Europeans or Americans in a
large number of the provinces; their lives and pro-
perty are menaced. Their ships, plying the great
rivers of the interior, are attacked, and constantly
riddled with shot by the hordes of soldier-bandits who
expect big booty from the vessel when run aground.

It would be too long to enumerate the sad series of
outrages in the valley of the Yang-Tse or the Si
Kiang where the victims have been numerous, with-
out counting the murder or the kidnapping in other
regions of inoffensive missionaries, American and
English ladies, in order to extort ransoms. It is unne-
cessary to point out the painful nature of such captivity.

In short, the situation in China can be described in
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YOUNG CHINA

two words - dictatorship on a small scale by various
military chiefs at war with each other, - the result, civil
war, anarchy, general misery. Add to this, permanent
menace to the trade and to the life of the foreigner.

Thus we are very far from the happy transforma-
tion of which Washington dreamed two years ago at
the time of the famous Conference; very far from the
achievement so naively anticipated by the United
States, - the definite establishment of a great yellow
democracy as the immediate result of making large con-
cessions to Chinese demands and of fully recognizing
her sovereign rights. To talk of sovereign rights for
China is all very well, but at least must she first possess
a government, a responsible central authority, and
that is very far from being the case to-day.

In this connection, it is well to examine the Ling-
Cheng affair. May 8th, 1923, -the outrage against
the express train Tien-tsin Pon Keon.

This affair caused very little sensation in Europe,
because the public did not understand its disquieting
significance, which is the more to be regretted because
it is a fact of immense importance, - the best proof
of the total collapse of the prestige of the white race
in China, and, by repercussion, in the whole Far East.
And this collapse is mainly the result of the Washing-
ton Conference.

The incident of Ling-Cheng is the most serious
outrage committed by the Chinese agamst the white
race since the Boxer epoch of 1900. Did they not
dare to drive like a herd of beasts, barefoot and clad
only ij5 nightgowns, little American children and poor

261

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

women dragged from their beds in the middle of the j
night? Did they not strike them with the butt ends of '|
their rifles, spit in their faces, and finally herd them in |
a mountain den with the threat of death if the con- ;
ditions demanded by the soldier-bandits were refused !
by the Powers? But what is important to understand (
is that this affair was not merely a brutal incident, '

an act of savage brigandage, it was a characteristic
Chinese intrigue, having all the appearance of a bold
stroke planned to cause scandal and to discredit the
party in power. This peculiarly Asiatic occurrence is
typical of the cynical intrigues of the hundreds of
factions who maintain anarchy in China and who have
carried their audacity to the point of capturing white
people to hold them as a trump card. In no respect
then is this the time to dream of abandoning ex-
territorial rights.

It is time also for the Great Powers to realize that
China is nowise a progressive country, supremely
anxious to develop its resources in peace and within
the fair limits of its national rights, such as she was
represented to be quite recently by America.

It is only a big country adrift, an enormous human
mass disabled, seeking some new state of equilibrium
which it seenas to us is very far to seek, and impossible
to achieve by China’s unaided resources.

The advances of the Chinese in the scientific and
even in the economic sphere are in fact more apparent
than real. Only last year I had the opporuntity of
seeing at close quarters every grade of the community,
and by comparison with the past (familiar to me from

262

YOUNG CHINA

an experience of twenty years) I was able to measure
the distance traversed by the Chinese since the end of
the War, and above all their progress since the Wash-
ington Conference.

I have never yet seen, except on rare occasions, the
Chinaman so lacking in understanding, or so arro-
gant, as at the present time. Since the day when he
absorbed, but did not digest, some notion of our
sciences, he has placed himself higher than ever
above the European; he claims to be able soon to do
without him in all branches of scientific or industrial
activity.

Even in the interior, in the most secluded provinces,
the students and the lettered class affirm more and
more openly their pretension to dominate the Euro-
pean and to put him back in the humiliating position
of a century ago - that is to say, of an epoch in which
we were regarded as mere barbarians under tribute to
the Son of Heaven and consequently altogether un-
worthy of appearing on a footing of equality with a
Chinaman. This arrogance is combined with a sly
hostility which only awaits an opportunity to unmask
itself, and to take the stupid but dangerous form which
it assumed in the Boxer movement.

In this new frame of mind, the Chinaman no longer
considers himself as bound by treaties: he has com-
pletely forgotten that he has duties of an international
character. He has only too thoroughly assimilated the
teaching of the Bolsheviks. The majority of the Tu-
Chuns are more especially forgetful of the mutual obli-
gations which exist between nations, and display bump-

263

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

tiousness which is equalled only by their ignorance of
the elementary principles which govern all peoples.
(An exception nevertheless must be made of the Gover-
nors of Shansi and of Yunnan.)

They have similar illusions upon the real state of
China, and as to her incapacity to attain financial and
consequently national independence for a long time to
come.

In their pride certain Tu-Chuns have even come to
believe themselves to be great warriors, able to defeat
European armies. They believe that to-day they are
strong, and herein lies the danger of the situation.

We should therefore beware of allowing the pacific
China of former times to change gradually into a great
military empire. With its Tu-Chuns, its increasing
armies, and its organized legions of brigands, it seems
more and more to be launched upon this course, so
dangerous for peace.

This disturbing development is aggravated by the
fact that the Bolshevist has come on the scene, and,
posing as the champion of China, hurls a challenge
to all the imperialists of Europe and America.

He seeks obviously a permanent understanding with
the Chinese, and even negotiates treaties, yesterday
with Pekin, to-day with Mukden and with Chang-
tso-lin. He is not less active in the South, where he
found in Sun Yat Sen his best ally.

Together with the fanaticism of great revolution-
aries, the Bolshevist shows an ardent thirst for domina-
tion, and reveals the temper of Tamerlane.

There is no longer any doubt that in Eastern Asia
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YOUNG CHINA

he is making very active preparations for the establish-
ment of a hegemony, menacing to the future of all,
including the United States.

Confronted with such a danger, what is being done
by the Great Powers, united by the Treaty of Washing-
ton.? They look on, they send notes to Pekin . , . and
they wait.

This is the well-known policy of ‘Wait and See’:
it is to be feared that the awakening will be as painful
as it will be brutal, and the anxious question suggests
itself, ‘What will be the attitude of Japan? To which
side will it lean?’

THE CHINAMAN AT SCHOOL

The Chinese student, in spite of appearances, is
generally idle. If he is that rara avis, an industrious
student, what is really striking about him is his marked
want of continuity of effort. Often he shows the
greatest willingness to learn; for some days, perhaps
for some weeks, he achieves a considerable amount of
work, then he suddenly disappears from the school; he
has gone back to his village, where he will spend
eighteen hours of the twenty-four talking, drinking
tea and smoking pipes; at the end of a week he will
return to the school, but the point to notice is that he
has not been able to resist this impulse to leave, this
need of prolonged relaxation.

Yet another characteristic of the student is that he
is always satisfied with himself; his conceit is amazing.
In an examination at the blackboard, even if he were
the profoundest of dunces, he will never admit his own

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incapacity but will denounce that of his professor. It
is impossible for him to be an idle fool; it is the teacher
who thus describes him in order to mask his own
incompetence.

He appears at first of a voracious activity, but one
soon realizes that this activity is only a futile fussiness
combined with a highly developed spirit of intrigue.
He is in this respect very feminine; he must meddle
with everything, spout about everything, touch every-
thing.

All the superficiality, all the inconstancy of mind of
the race are summed up in the student.

This frivolity, combined with a repugnance for pro-
longed effort, ill fits him for the study of Western
sciences, but what makes things worse is the conceit
which leads him to believe that our sciences are nothing
compared with his literature, that he can acquire them
without exerting himself, and in a much shorter time
than the European student, though the latter is of
course much better prepared, and is not confined like
the Chinaman to merely memorizing what he learns.

Students of all ages are characterized by a marked
dislike of discipline, a contempt of all that is orderly
and methodical. The young Chinaman, unless he is
physically compelled, will conform to no rule, and
desires to study or amuse himself as he thinks fit. He
plays practical jokes upon his masters, and is ever
plotting against them.

What he chiefly demands from his masters is that
he shall be rapidly taught. When I was a professor at
Chengtufu, in the School of Imperial Medicine which

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YOUNG CHINA

I founded, I endeavoured but in vain to explain to the
mandarins that in order really to master one of the
Western sciences a European required some years -
four or five at least, - preceded by a long preparation.
No one was willing to believe me, or rather they
uttered under their breath the comment that we were
really the hopelessly stupid barbarians that they thought
we were.

It is particularly the preparatory studies which dis-
gust the students. As soon as they are given to under-
stand that beyond the elementary stages there is a
higher grade of instruction, they wish to advance at
once to this stage.

Thus my pupils demanded to be instantly taught
surgery, leaving out the study of anatomy, which they
regarded as negligible, because one would thus arrive
more quickly at the end of one’s studies, and this was
the real object in view. The Chinaman is a sly fellow.

Yet again, you are perhaps professor of chemistry in
an official school. Your pupils one day inform you
abruptly that they find chemistry a bore, and that they
desire a change, say, the integral calculus, or zoology,
and there is general amazement when you refuse the
request.

And yet China had heard so much of the marvels of
chemistry and of physics; in those sciences lay the true
secret of the power of the foreign devils. Students in
their twenties, urchins in school, were eager to learn
them. They wished to commence with them, - to
learn quickly the formulae of this organic chemistry
which enables one to manufacture wealth, and those

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

amusing things that are called explosives. But when
these ardent students had seen what chemistry was as
it is taught, and the complexity of chemical combina-
tions, they were svu’prised and disgusted. Chemistry
soon went out of fashion, and then it was mineralogy
or international law which had the preference. Miner-
alogy, you can guess why, - they would be able to dis-
cover treasure; international law, - they could quickly
learn how to do for the white barbarians.

But you ask. Is there no inspection of studies.?
There is certainly the mandarin of the place, but if
he should be an academician {]ian lin) he would rarely
know anything but his own literature. As for oxygen
or nitrogen, mammalia or dicotyledons, he has never
heard of them.

These last few years, the Government has indeed
tried to put a little order in the educational system, but
it lacks both authority and jurisdiction. The central
Government is nothing more than a shadow, in the
anarchy which has followed the establishment of the
republic. There are no real schools except those set
up by foreigners with their own professors, and the
pupils often escape from their authority.

They meet more and more in the famous students’
committees of the Government schools, and pass the
best part of their time in discussions or political demon-
strations, denouncing on every hand the dark designs
and encroachments of foreigners.

Under these conditions, how can the young China-
man make any progress in acquiring a scientific edu-
cation.? He has only learned to chatter in scientific

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YOUNG CHINA

jargon, and has acquired nothing but an indigestible
hash of vague European science of the most rudiment-
ary kind, and Chinese literature.

This ingrained frivolity of the student, his desire for
variety and excitement, naturally prevent hard mental
work. One day he will apply himself doubtless to our
sciences, but without going deeply into them and
making them his own.

After centuries of immobility, the cause of which is
certainly biological, is it likely that he can make serious
and profound progress as quickly as some people
think? It is at least probable that all the defects I have
pointed out, the indiscipline alone excepted, are
inherent in the Chinese race.

Does the experience of these last few years encourage
the expectation of fruitful progress?

Evidently not. Or again, can the study of our
sciences under the present conditions bring practical
and palpable results? All the evidence says no. They
are even very often pronounced to be worthless. The
Chinaman had once such great hopes 1 Industrially, he
was going immediately to manufacture what Euro-
peans manufacture, even the most complicated chemi-
cal products; he was going to learn in three or four
years how to organize real factories, he was going to
construct railways, ports, etc. What is there astonish-
ing in the fact that the attempts made to realize such
dreams have resulted in chilling the most ardent!

Thus, everything has to be started afresh; and the
indispensable guide is the unwanted European.

269

T

CHAPTER XV

THE FUTURE OF CHINA

THE ACTION WHICH THE WHITE RACE MUST TAKE IN
THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA

A t this period of economic crisis affecting the
whole world, it is important for us to enlarge our
horizon, and look far beyond our own frontiers. It will
then be realized that this crisis is still more serious
than one would imagine, if we ignore Asia, and in
particular that enormous market of Eastern Asia.

The question is: Will these immense and thickly
populated territories respond to our hopes, and can
they come to the aid of Europe in getting her out of
her difficulties.? For instance, will China with her hun-
dreds of millions of people shortly become one of
the greatest markets in the world, and furnish Europe
with abundance of raw material at a low price; will
she, on the other hand, buy more of our manufactured
products?

It will be well, then, to examine the economic future
of China, and the extent of her possibilities.

The Anglo-Saxon world in recent years has been
intoxicated at the thought of the immensity of China,
and the prospect of an intensive and general exploita-
tion of the whole territory under a new regime, liberal
or so supposed: the effect of the inauguration of the
Republic in 1 9 1 1 .

Unhappily it has chiefly considered the fafade as it
were, and has reckoned upon mere possibilities, or on
certain investigations of the most superficial character,

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THE FUTURE OF CHINA

such as that which has wrongly ascribed to China
enormous mineral resources. Because China is vast
and possesses an immense labour supply, the whole
Press of the United States, even more than the Eng-
lish Press, have celeibrated in unison the ‘immense
resources’ and the ‘fabulous wealth’ of China.

It was Eldorado so often dreamed, the enormous
legendary market, which was to solve all economic
crises, and enrich every nation capable of securing for
itself a large place therein.

Even the political disorder and the civil war result-
ing from the new regime led no one to serious reflec-
tion. It was a delirium, a real frenzy of commercial
greed.

Appetites were quickly whetted and extended.
The United States in particular made an immense
effort with the idea of securing her own economic
predominance.

A campaign of moral sway was at the same time
organized, energetically led by the religious missions
and the Y.M.C.A.

But there was England as well, with a strong com-
mercial position acquired long ago, which it sought
to defend and maintain; this seemed all the more
necessary as India was causing it keen disappointment,
and threatened to be no longer the great expanding
market capable of satisfying British industrial under-
takings. At any rate, it is true that a whole campaign
has been set on foot these last few years by the Press
to invite English industry to turn its eyes more and
more towards China - more populous, they say (but

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

that is not certain), and richer than India (but that is
not certain either).

But why these reserves and doubts, on my part?
It will be easy soon to judge.

In fact, no nation, whatever the extent of its natural
resources, can develop itself except in peace and under
a Government adapted to its age in evolution. Now
what is the present situation of China?

It is well known. At the present day, or rather
since the inauguration of the Republic, the brutal fact
which attracts universal attention is the anarchic state
of this great country: there is disorder everywhere,
industry and commerce are paralysed, and in con-
sequence even those foreign enterprises against which
there is not a word to be said - European, American
or Japanese - are threatened. But what tends mainly
to ruin the country is the incessant fighting between
the Tu-Chuns, or military dictators. Thus production
in general is greatly reduced by massacres and pillage
and destruction of the means of work. In certain
provinces, provinces as vast as the whole of France,
where the greater part of the transport is carried on
the backs of men or animals, the losses have been so
great that cultivation and internal trade will be reduced
for many years to come.

More than that, the maintenance of watercourses,
which have been carried on less for navigation than
for irrigation, has been greatly neglected ; the regulat-
ing and distributing canals and the precious dykes
have not received the constant care given in time of
peace.

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THE FUTURE OF CHINA

This glance at the economic situation now enables
us to understand why this country, suffering periodic-
ally from drought or from flood and consequently from
famine, has been so hard hit in recent years. It is easy
to see also that, faced with the necessity for unceasing
struggle with the elements, the persistence of civil war
and the reign of the military chieftains bring intolerable
suffering to all China, particularly as the military leaders
do not fail to press forward the cultivation of the opium
poppy, thus reducing the area for growing cereals.

Such is the situation.

What a task for those who, like the United States,
have declared themselves to be the champions of the
old civilization, who aim at renewing it in their own
image, and stabilizing it in peace and prosperity.

First of all, it is necessary to clear out of China the
mercenaries, the Free Companies, who are devouring
her, more than a million and a half in nurnTjer, not
counting the common brigands, who, numerous
enough in ordinary times, have now become legion;
it is necessary also to free her from that generation of
mandarins whose maxim with regard to the people has
been and remains. There is no dog so thin that you
cannot squeeze a bit of fat out of him,’ an allusion to
the official plundering of centuries.

To rid China of all these scourges, what a Hercu-
lean labour! But if I set forth the evil and the whole
evil of the situation, I do it solely in the interests of
Young China, so that it may withdraw into silence, in
place of its present agitation, and seek to measure the
greatness of its task.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

But it may be objected that the present situation,
however serious, cannot last, and is nothing but a
simple political crisis.

Profound mistake: the crisis is mainly social and
economic, therefore infinitely grave.

From a social point of view there has been an
upheaval.

In truth, the sudden change of government, the
abrupt imposition of a democratic system in 1911,
dealt a terrible blow to the Chinese social machinery,
completely dislocated it, and put nothing in the gap
that could be fitted in there. Raising the Republican
standard could not effect an organic transformation:
peoples do not change their character as they do their
shirts. China made a leap in the dark to a system of
government which can only be efficiently established
by cautious stages. As the great statesman Yuan Che
Kai justly said, ‘They have chipped the people’s feet
to fit them into the new Government shoes.’

Hence the present anarchy.

Above all, there have been taught in China certain
democratic doctrines, excellent from a philosophic
point of view, but detestable and destructive for people
who are still much nearer infancy than maturity, and
it is impossible to deny that they have largely contrib-
uted to produce the social disorder and the ever-
increasing anarchy in which the new Republic is at the
present time floundering. We must realize once for
all that our political and social ideas administered in
large doses must as a result upset the balance of the
Asiatic. Why? Because he has not yet reached the

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THE FUTURE OF CHINA

biological age at which these ideas can be truly and
fruitfully assimilated. Full of enthusiasm, wishing to
transform their country in a day, the young Chinese,
such as the doctor Sun Yat Sen, have roughly flung
her forward, flouting all her traditions. Punishment
has not been long in coming; it has been immediate,
for the laws of evolution permit no violation.

In short, since the day when the young Chinese,
fresh from the Universities of Europe and America,
and strongly upheld by powerful foreign organiza-
tions, succeeded in overthrowing the dynasty of the
Ts’-ing: since the day when a government styled
‘democratic’ was abruptly substituted for the old
absolutism, China has ceased to enjoy internal peace.
The Central Government has by degrees lost all
authority over the provinces, while these have fallen
one after another under the yoke of the Tu-Chuns, so
thoroughly that the disorder of the first years of the
Republic has been quickly turned into anarchy, under
the hardest of despotisms.

The confusion of parties, the very sharply con-
flicting interests of the clans, or rather of their appe-
tites, is such that no durable rule can be established.
Never have I seen in the provinces, with the sole
exception of Shansi, such lack of discipline, such a
want of regard for public morality, shown in an abso-
lute indifference to the common interest.

Even the family so strongly organized - the found-
ation of order and social tranquillity - has suffered.
There is no longer any authority but that of the sword
- that of the Tu-Chuns.

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Even the family, I say, has suffered, that is to say,
the cult of the ancestor, the religious system with
more power over the Chinese conscience than all
human laws; this system renowned in Chinese history,
on which rests the whole social and political edifice.
This is a fact grave both for the present and the future.

The natural result is the decline of public morality,
mediocre at the best of times, apart from family
discipline.

I must say a few words on Chinese morality, since
it has been for some little time one of the questions
of the day in Europe. That the moral code contains
excellent rules of conduct, particularly in what con-
cerns the family, no one will deny. But for those who
know it well, particularly in its practice, it is not im-
pressive by reason of any superiority, and has never
created supermen. It can even be said that this
morality in its practical application is above all a
question of ‘face,’ that is to say, it is a ‘facade’ mor-
ality, a ritual. The fault is of small importance, if only
appearances are observed.

It is noteworthy also that this code of morality has
had so little hold on the masses that those in author-
ity, in order to maintain discipline, have had to
apply in all ages the most barbarous penalties: hor-
rible punishments such as the well-known ting che, or
‘the torture of the hundred thousand pieces.’

There has existed also the famous penal principle
(abolished only in 1911) of collective responsibility,
involving all the members of a family, in all its living
generations, for the crime of a single member.

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THE FUTURE OF CHINA

Many writers in recent times have discussed China.
One of them, wishing to impress the imagination of
his readers, has declared that modern Europe in its
disorder could realize salvation only by the complete
adoption of Chinese morality. But of this morality
he seems to know very little, particularly in its effect
upon the Chinese character, which it has so little
fashioned, so little withdrawn from the impulses of
instinct.

Chinese morality offered to the world as an example 1
Here is indeed a strange idea. But is not this idea
derived from that new mysticism, the wisdom of the
East - a wisdom ill-defined, in which the fetish wor-
ship of certain writers or theosophists seeks the solu-
tion of all present problems, and a sure return to the
Golden Age, to the reign of the great Confucian sages?
When it is not China which is offered to us as an
example, it is India. But from whom has India taken
her ancient culture, which alone is great and fruitful?
From the Aryan.

In short, Chinese wisdom which has been so much
vaxmted is nothing but that ‘wisdom of the nations’
common to so many peoples, which coming to the
Celestial Empire from the West came to us from the
East - that is, from the Near East and from Central
Asia. But it is very necessary not to forget that there
is a morality of precept and a morality of action.
Now, without boasting of ourselves, wo have for cen-
turies practised especially this latter, and by means of
it have acquired a great dynamic force which has
revealed itself in a powerful evolution, while the China-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

man has simply adorned himself with morality of pre-
cepts, has made of it a splendid facade and a convenient
mask. Except at rare epochs his whole history is there
to prove this. It is this which explains many of the
halts in his political and economic development.

It is then wrongly that certain doctrinaire writers,
who have no experience of the world which lives and
moves, or of its diverse races, show so much disdain
for their own civilization. The truth is that, in spite
of weaknesses and errors, our civilization still stands
very high above the moral systems of Asia, especially
if one considers their results and their real impression
upon humanity.

THE ECONOMIC FUTURE OF CHINA; ITS AGRICULTURE

It is here, above all, that we find the touchstone for
the future of this country, and here also the stumbling-
block.

Large industries are still but little developed, from
the want of capital and of the means of rapid transport,
and are confined to the open ports such as Shanghai
or Hankow. Moreover, the economic potentialities of
China will long be found in its agriculture. One can
say that it is dominant to such an extent that it still
absorbs nearly 90 per cent, of the population. The
future of China will then consist chiefly of the activity
and the gradual development of its rural economy.

As for its capacity to export, and consequently to
purchase, it will be in virtue, as it is to-day, of its
agricultural production. It is therefore this production
which concerns Europe to the highest degree.

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THE -FUTURE OF CHINA

What, then, are the prospects?

To appreciate them I will base myself only upon
definite facts collected in the interior of the country in
regions very different from one another, on a tour of
investigation of more than 12,500 miles carried out
in short stages during many years.

I will tell what I have seen with my own eyes, what
I have long observed in the mountains as in the plains,
in the course of my geological and botanical studies,
or those which I have devoted to anthropology, that
important science which allows us to gauge the physical
and psychical potentialities of a race or people - that
is to say, its capacity for action or evolution.

The picture of agricultural China, like so many
other descriptions which I formerly traced, is some-
what different from those published by too many
persons, who have no general scientific education,
and who really imagine that to stay two or three
months in the great international cities of China - that
is to say, on the threshold of this continent - gives
them the right to perorate endlessly upon this immense
country.

When one crosses the immense plains of Eastern
China, one is especially struck with the absence of all
clumps of trees, and of any forest. In winter the soil
lies in complete nakedness, with no sign of brush-
wood or hedge.

Go elsewhere upon the tablelands or in mountainous
regions; there is the same bareness, except for a few
groups of trees which have sprung up in inaccessible
spots. I have passed through real forests, but only in

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

Thibet, or in those hills of far west China inhabited
by the independent tribes of the Lolos. Everywhere
else, where the Chinaman is master, the forest has
disappeared. For it he is pitiless. It is true to say that
the Chinese peasant, speaking generally, reveals him-
self as a heedless being, living without care for the
morrow. He has not understood nor wished to under-
stand that forests guarantee a regular rainfall, and
afford the best security for annual and recurring har-
vests. He has, on the contrary, everywhere obliterated
the forest, in ignorance of the fatal effects of this error. •
The peasant, moreover, believes in the policy of the
least possible effort. He acts mechanically, by rote,
without ambition, and without sound judgment.
Hence he has also not understood the need for grass-
land, and has everywhere sacrificed it to the growth of
cereals. Consequently there is a very restricted num-
ber of domestic animals, and their quality is very
mediocre because they are badly nourished, and there
is no selective breeding. The herd of fatted beasts does
not exist, and cannot help to make up for the present
insufficiency of cereals.

The Chinaman therefore vegetates in poverty; and
the agony of making sure his daily pittance has thus
continued throughout the centuries.

The mandarin has not interferfed ; thus China to-day
lacks grasslands, firewood, wood for construction,
wood for cabinet-making. For the sleepers of her
railways she is obliged to apply to the foreigner.

When I had long studied Central and Western
China, I desired to acquaint myself with Northern

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THE FUTURE OF CHINA

China, the regions of loess^ of that formation which is
well known for its fertility. As it covers immense
stretches, hundreds of thousands of square miles
from east to west, and as the cereals of the temperate
regions grow there easily, it ought to be an abundant
granary for China.

Unhappily it is not so.

As elsewhere, the agricultural populations and their
chief men remain wholly unaware of the consequences
of destroying trees. The famines from which they
have so cruelly suffered do not appear to have enlight-
ened them.

From Shansi I wrote to the Geographical Society:

‘The inhabitants have transformed a large part of
this fine province into desert zones; and they are still
busy at this task.

‘I have just crossed a high tableland, where in a wild
and secluded spot a luxuriant vegetation was to be
seen whose beauty was most impressive in the midst
of the general desolation. In the shelter of a few trees,
pines, birch trees, poplars and limes, white lilies grow
wild with eleagnus, and daphnes. I noticed also many
bushes of an oak, a kinsman of ours, but in vain did I
seek any specimen with the stature of a tree. In the
less isolated districts the axe and the billhook have
felled and obliterated the trees, and to-day the hoe
is brought to tear up the last remaining roots of the
last remaining shrubs on the slopes of tne hills. This
is to create a new patch, a new field, to replace one in
the valley which had been one day buried under the
boulders of rock that had rolled from the bare moun-

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

tain side, which because it was bare was exposed to
the maximum effects of erosion. The stripped moun-
tain was avenging itself by covering with its boulders
the fertile field of the stupid peasant and making it
barren for ever. It is thus that desert comes into
being, and rapidly spreads.

‘I have seen plateaus of the richest loess so seamed
with ravines by the furious waters that they appeared
like a gigantic star with innumerable rays, stretch-
ing further every year towards the centre and devour-
ing the fertile soil until every inhabitant is driven
away.

‘Except in isolated corners which become more and
more rare, where vegetation has preserved the humus
of the earth against the fury of the summer rains,
everywhere upon the tablelands, upon the slopes of
the hills and elevations, there is an aspect of naked-
ness and of desolation which is extremely impressive.
It might be said that Attila and all his hordes had
passed that way, he whose horse rendered barren with
its hoof the very grass. It is an incredible spectacle
of the ruin, deliberate however, of a beautiful country
and of a fertile soil. Before the lapse of twenty-five
years this work of destroying all growth of tree or
bush will be fully accomplished, in spite of the efforts
of the present governor, Yen, a man of intelligence and
character. He strives to reafforest, but the opinion of
those interested does not support him, for their want
of comprehension of rural economy is that of primi-
tive folk who live without care for the morrow.’

And thus it is with all the provinces.

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THE FUTURE OF CHINA

Doubtless the objection will be advanced: ‘But the
great plains escape from the effects of erosion?’

No, they are affected indirectly. The melting of the
snows, joined with the violent rains of summer, throws
suddenly into the valley bottoms enormous masses of
water because the forest is no longer there to regulate
the flow. Hence every year there are floods in the
north, in the centre, or in the south; vast stretches
being submerged with their crops. Or else, always
because of the widespread deforestation, there is an
insufficiency of snow and of rain, hence drought,
and harvests jeopardized. Those who have not seen
thousands of famishing beings along the roads, await-
ing death with a heart-breaking resignation, cannot
form any idea of the extent of this devastation. Thus
the reign of a bare living and even of famine estab-
lishes itself more and more in China. And emigra-
tion to Manchuria, Mongolia or the European col-
onies in the Pacific, becomes inevitable.

Is this state of affairs of recent origin? No. It is
the work of the past, of long centuries of heedless-
ness and of want of understanding, but it becomes
worse every decade, and it is not the new regime
which has sprung from the revolution of 1911 which
can change the situation; on the contrary, as we have
seen, it has made matters worse.

To sum up, whether one considers the present or
the distant past, the Chinaman has never succeeded
in ensuring for himself a regular supply of daily bread
or the daily rice. Nor has he known how to create
easy means of communication, roads suitable for

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MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

wheeled traffic, so that he has been obliged to rely
on man himself for transport, and to use him as a
beast of burden.

Hence it is that a large percentage of the popu-
lation of China wears itself out upon the roads, and
is diverted from more productive occupations. We
have seen also China’s incapacity of appreciating the
importance of stock-breeding, for food, for transport,
and for the manuring of the fields.

The realization of this fact is of great importance,
for it means an unfitness of the Chinese to organize
in the economic field, which is a sure indication of
biological significance; the mark of an evolution
delayed by organic or racial incompetence.

What are we to conclude.? That the great hopes of
the Anglo-Saxon world rest on very problematical
foundations, especially as the Chinaman tends more
and more, because of his conceit, to' refuse the help
of the European.

Nevertheless, to whom is due the only progress
realized in the economic sphere.? Who waked China
from her sleep, from her age-long routine.? Was it not
the European? And it is also he who created those
great prosperous cities called the ‘Concessions,’ cen-
tres from which is sent forth and received such vitality
as circulates in China’s enormous mass.

These ‘Concessions’ besides are oases in the misery
and present-day danger - refuges ardently sought by
every Chinaman. If indeed, since 1918, China has
escaped economic collapse, she owes it solely to
foreign action, to such organizations as those of the

284

THE FUTURE OF CHINA

Customs, the Posts and the Salt Tax. One may even
say that the receipts from these services form the only
revenue regularly collected, and banked in their
entirety. Without them, without their continued
increase under the superintendence of Europeans,
China would long ago have been declared bankrupt.

At the same time, what would she not gain by a
certain amount of control of her railways and particu-
larly of her desperately embarrassed finances? For it
is incontestable that the white race has set in China
the good example of organization and disinterested
service, and devotion to public interest, a virtue so
rare in Asia.

I do not hesitate to declare that the problem of the
re-establishment of order and peace, an indispensable
condition of all economic transformation, is insoluble
for the Chinaman unaided : he has neither the will, nor
the capacity, nor the technical and financial means
to set about it. Modern organization, political and
economic, recently introduced, is manifestly too com-
plex for a Chinese brain. It is a question of evolution
which cannot be solved overnight.

Young China on its return from Europe and from
America would do well to meditate on Ovid’s famous
phrase: Natura non facit saltus.

But how can China be extricated from her present
situation? Certainly it is not by the present generation
of her country - so far astray, so confused in its ideas
- that she can be rescued. But there must be an end
of the present state of things; all classes of society
have had enough of these ruinous fratricidal struggles,

285 u

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

which fatten a hundredth part of the population to the
detriment of the other ninety-nine-hundredths.

The hour then has come for the Great Powers to
act, the hour to convey indispensable help, in which
there is no taint of Imperialism. It is necessary to
restore and even to extend that co-operation with
Europe which has hitherto been so fruitful. The
Chinaman must not forget that without European
capital and technical assistance he would have neither
railways nor modern ports.

The moment is so serious for the future of the
country that Young China ought to weigh all the perils
which menace and show more wisdom.

Large systems of communication must be con-
structed, but the principal need is to reorganize agri-
culture, the supreme resource of China, which must
be regenerated and recreated in a practical manner
by restoring pasture land and woods.

As regards cultivation proper, China should be
inspired by European science, and should gradually
arrive at increasing her present output, so mediocre
mainly because of the lack of manure.

She should cease also to sacrifice so much good
land to the culture of opium. These changes are the
more desirable because Europe and America are in
need of the oleaginous products and the various tex-
tiles of China; but their annual production is so
variable that it defies all commercial forecasts.

Any effort at the improvement of regular returns
will fail as long as systematic afforestation is not
effected.

286

THE FUTURE OF CHINA

But that is the work of a Titan, in a country where
alone the dead in their tombs, the mandarins and the
rich have a right to the beneficent shade of a tree.

Also, vast regions are being gradually dried up,
such as Turkestan and Northern China, because they
are no longer receiving any but a meagre and irregular
quantity of rain or snow.

But reafforestation, of a territory so vast, can only
be carried on by the European; he alone is capable of
a like effort.

The forestry service should be organized on the
model of the Customs, for example.

Such are the present necessities.

The task is severe, a work of time as much for
China as for the signatory Powers of the Washington
Treaty. All the more severe, because Bolshevist
Imperialism is becoming in the Far East an increas-
ingly apparent menace. If we do not take care the
evil will soon be irreparable.

It is for the United States to speak; but that the
augurs should pronounce is a matter of urgent necessity 1

It is no less a matter than the peace of the world,
and its prosperity, and also the rescue of hundreds of
millions of beings, who, left to themselves, have a
half-century before them of struggling in the anguish
of insecurity and advancing ruin. Let us think also of
this: instead of wealth to exploit, for certain nations
there will remain in this great country only misery
to alleviate.

This China would be not the Great Power but the
Great Pity of the twentieth century.

287

MODERN CHINESE CIVILIZATION

A Frenchman declared recently, on slender data,
that China would be the Great Power of the twentieth
century. And he likened her approaching develop-
ment to that of the United States in the course of the
nineteenth centvuy. Now, no comparison is less justi-
fied, either from the geographic and economic stand-
point or from the racial.

In the United States we have a new country
with immense agricultural, timber and mineral re-
sources, which are not to be found in a China which
has squandered her wealth, and greatly diminished it
by errors hard to repair.

Neither can the human factor in the two cases
be compared. The one country is represented by a
race overflowing with vitality and creative power; the
other by an aged people, without cohesion, without
ideals, long in a state of stupor, and whose evolution
will be always retarded by a certain racial characteristic
- the hybridism of which I have spoken.

Moreover, this Frenchman has judged according
to what he saw in the great international cities of
Shanghai or Tien-tsin, overflowing with life and pros-
perity. But these great cities are entirely the work of
the white race, the creative and organizing race.

That is not China, the real China; that, this French-
man never saw.

China, the Great Power of the twentieth century!
Think over what you have just read, and judge!

288

INDEX

AdrianofF, Russian archae-
ologist, 218

Afforestation, necessity of,
9, 282, 286, 287
Agriculture:

Chinese insistence on
rice growing, 117
Chinese not farmers
but gardeners, 1 1 3
destructionof woods and
forests, 8-12, 1 14,
117, 118, 150, Ip,
161, 162, 279-281
horse breeding, 1 1 5
implements, 119
inferiority of pigs, 1 1 6
necessity for reorgan-
ization, 286
stock-raising, 114, 117,
151, 152, 162
the sole manure, 70-7 1 »

113

Architecture, disappoint-
38* 59 ) 60
Arts and Industries:
carpentry and joinery,
106

ceramic art highly

developed, 112

Arts and Industries:
coppersmith’s work in-
ferior, no
dyeing defective, 96
embroidery, beauty of,

furniture, simple, 102-
104

iron industry, primi-
tive, 108-109
ivory and woodcarv-
ing, excellence of,
112

jewellery, expert work
in, no

leather, unskilful tan-
ning, in

spinning and weaving
defective, 96
tools, primitive, 108

Assyro-Babylonian influ-
ence on Chinese art,
230

Assyroid and Aryan types,
found all over China,
212, 224

Beggars, organized body,

68

289

INDEX

Beggars, above the come-
dian in social scale,
144

feared by the people, 69
Boatmen, 140— 141
Bolshevist, danger from
{see prefaces), 263-
264

Brick, preferred to stone
for walls, 39
Bride’s procession, 64
Buddhist influence on
Chinese art, 232
Bushell, on Indian influ-
ence on Chinese art,
232

Carruthers, finds stone
statues in Siberia,
218

Caucasian, type found all
over China, 214
Chengtufu, typical Chin-
ese city, 39-40, 52-
51

captured by twelve
Boxers, 73
Chinese character:
blunted senses, 168
capacity for sleep, 168
conceit, 192

Chinese character:

contempt for human
life, 17

kindness to animals,
190

lack of analytical power,
170, 171, 173
pacific nature, 72-73
patience, 181
repugnance to physical
exercise, 1 77-179
respect for learning,
203

superstition, 199-202
want of concentration,
169-170

Chinese empire, creation
of the white race,
215, 219

Chinese philosophy,
largely borrowed,
229

Chinese workmen, dislike
of continuous work,
176

lack of thoroughness,
176

supervision necessary,
169

Classes of Society, Uter-
atiy 125-126

290

INDEX

Confucius, philosophy of,
overrated, I2, 227-
228, 23^-236
Coolies or porters:

idealization of, 136,

138

physical sufferings of,
62-63, i 34 -i 35 >

139

wheelbarrow, 61-64
Dress:

absence of pockets, 80
blue cotton, 76
Chinese contempt for
European clothing,
76, 77

costume, style un-
changed, 98, 125
long sleeves, 80, 8 1
neglect of wool as
fabric, 75, 155, 163
silk, 7^j 77> 81, 9^>
98

uncleanliness, 78, 79

Economic position of
China, 149-158
Education, purely liter-
ary, 145, 268

Education, European
science beginning to
be taught, 147
but with little success,
267-269

ignorance of science,
146-164
stereotyped, 238

Feng, see prefaces

Floods, canalsneglected,5 1
caused by deforesta-
tion, 9, 152, 283
dykes not repaired, 14,
161

want of drainage, 35,

Food, Chinese preference
for pork, 87-88
a Chinese menu, 89—91
diet of poorer classes,
91-92

overeating, 87
table and kitchen ware,

93-94

Genghiz Khan, not ‘yel-
low,’ but Turco-Ira-
nian, 223

Girl students, join in pro-
cessions, 246

291

INDEX

Girl, variegated Western
education of, 250
Grand Canal, i$i
Grass-seller, 67
Gunpowder not a Chinese
invention, 235

Hairdresser, peripatetic,

66

low in social scale, 143,
144

House :

attic required in flood-
time, 35

brick become too dear,

lighting insufficient, 35
little decoration, 37
materials of, 31
no cellar, 36
no heating apparatus, 3 6
plan of, 33

roofs well made, but no
gutters, 109
stone rarely used, 32,39
Huns, wrongly described
as being of ‘Yellow’
race, 221

Kubla Khan, not ‘yellow,’
but Turco-Iranian,
223

Laotze, did not invent
Taoism, 228

Mandarin :

corruption and rapacity
of, 15, 191,237,273
culture of, 145-171
dress of, 127
dwelling of, 128
habits of, 129, 238
privileges of, 125'
processions of, 64, 85,
127

superstition, 201
Merchant class, no influ-
ence on Government,
132

dictated to by students,
248

honest and loyal in
trade dealings, 188
improved by contact
with white races,
I33> 227

take refuge in Conces-
sions, 25^4

Ming period, art inspired
byT urco-Iranians, 233
Miss Americana, means
well but does harm,
249-250

292

INDEX

Mongol, name derived
from Mong Gou,
ancestor of Genghiz
Khan, 223

Negroid, prototype exist-
ing in China, 206,
222

Nestorians initiate Turco-
Iranians in Hellenic
culture, 218

Opium poppy:

cultivation by Tu-
Chuns, 243

sacrifice of cereal land
to poppy, 242

Persian influence in art
technique, 233

Pipes, hired out, 67

Population, overesti-
mated, 10, 239

‘Precious River’ of Cheng-
tufu, filled with filth,

S9 ,

Public Finance:

bankruptcy but for
European control,
285

493

Public Finance:

Customs, Posts and
Salt Tax under Euro-
pean supervision,
285

no estimates of public
expenditure, 19 1
no national budget, 1 9 1

Railways, constructed by
Europeans, 15^0,
238

badly maintained, 239
European control ad-
vised, 285

Religion, ancestor wor-
ship, ir, 194-195
disbelief in the gods,
196-197
Dragon, 201
omens, 199-200
tricking the gods, 198-
199

Restaurant keeper, peri-
patetic, 66

Roads, new ones un-
metalled,
bad state of, 151
need of, 151, 286
unsuited for vehicular
traffic, 1 51

INDEX

RostovtzefF, opinion on
Iranian and Chinese
art, 230-232

Russell, Bertrand, flatters
the Chinese, 252-254

Sarmatians, Chinese
armour borrowed
from, 231

Solidarity, lack of, 16-18,
184

Sun Yat Sen, 275

Tamerlane, not

but Turco-Iranian,
223

Tang, period, Buddhist
influence pervading,
232

Taoism, derived from the
Upanishads, 228

Tartars, Camp, 41-55, 69
decadence of, 41, 50,
51

driven away in 1 9 1 1 , 52
ladies, idle and slov-
enly, 49

love of singing birds,

47

Marshal, representa-
tive of Emperor, 41

Temples, best period of
architecture, 37
Theatres, absence of as
public buildings, 60
Trade, adulteration, 122,
124

false weights, 123
Tu-Chuns, restart opium-
poppy culture, 242
armies of brigands, 273
cruel despots, 275
destruction of life and
property, 272
help themselves to rail-
way receipts, 242
incessant fighting be-
tween, 272

think themselves great
warriors, 264
Turk, not but

fine specimen of
white race, 223

University of Chengtufu,
modern building of
no merit architectur-
ally, 60

Viceregal Palace of Cheng-
tufu, described, 56,
59

294

INDEX

Walls of Chengtufu, de-
scribed, 40

Women, position of, 18-
24, 28, 33, lOI,
190, 251

dress of, 81, 82, 100-

lOI

enfranchised, 246, 250
lack of education of,
251

Manchu, 48, 49, 82
mutilation of feet, 21,

23., 173

sufferings of daugh-
ters-in-law, 19-22

Yellow Race, hybrid of
whites and negroids,
212, 215

Young China, unsuitable
education, 247, 248,
250, 256, 257, 268,
274^

aggressive xenophobia,

244

amazing conceit, 265
dislike of discipline,266
frivolity, 266, 269
idle students, 265
interferes in public
affairs, 245

organizes boycott, 245
school strikes, 247
submissiveness of cen-
tral Government to,

245

want of perseverance,

265, 266

295